I decided to write this PredictIt review to show you why this is a prediction markets site like no other. After all, it’s purely focused on letting you make your political predictions.
I’ll walk you through how PredictIt works to let you buy and sell contracts for anything from what President Trump does next to who the next president of Brazil will be. You’ll also learn about all of those important things like payment methods, customer support and how it is that this brand is allowed to operate all over the US.
What is PredictIt?
So before we get started, we should actually take a second to understand what this brand is. Well, PredictIt is a prediction markets site that was originally launched as a non-profit academic venture in New Zealand back in 2014. It was relaunched in 2025 to take advantage of the prediction markets craze and it focuses primarily on political affairs.
Exploring the prediction markets at PredictIt
So it’s important to understand that PredictIt only lets you trade on political event contracts. This means that you won’t find any sports prediction markets here, and don’t go looking for any contracts for culture, economics or the climate either.
Thankfully, PredictIt has proven to be second-to-none in terms of the sheer variety of political prediction markets that it covers. Here’s an overview of the different kinds of politics trades you could soon be making:
A crash-course in how PredictIt prediction markets works
While you can read my guide that answers the question, ‘What are prediction markets?’ I thought it would be handy for you to get a brief overview right here.
Prediction markets are where you make predictions on real-world events that could be anything from presidential elections to massive sporting events. You will make your prediction and then buy a contract for that choice.
The contracts will vary in cost between $0.01 and $0.99, and the more expensive they are, the more likely they are to win. If your contract proves correct, it will then be worth $1, but if your prediction is wrong, your contract’s value will go down to zero.
Let’s take an example from the PredictIt site where you get asked the question of whether President Trump leaves early? Here are the contract prices:
- Yes $0.47
- No $0.53
The Yes answer has been generated by the amount of contracts bought for that option, and the consensus is that there is a 47% chance of him leaving early which is mirrored in the contract price of $0.47.
However, if you bought the No contract, it would be seen as being more likely to happen with a 53% chance reflected in the $0.53 contract price. From this we can see that buying the less risky contract would get you smaller returns from the $1 value of the winning contract.
Understanding the fees at PredictIt
All prediction markets sites will include some kind of commission for trading, as it’s how they make your money from your peer-to-peer trading. The good news here is that PredictIt is nicely transparent about how its fees are structured, and that such fees are in place to help it stay in business as a not-for-profit organization. Here are the key takeaways about those fees:
- PredictIt will charge a fee of 10% on any profits that you make from your trading. So if you sell a contract and make $10 in profit, you will be charged a modest $1 fee.
- You won’t be charged any fees for selling your contracts at a loss, or even if they are at the same price that you bought them for.
- You will face a 5% fee for each withdrawal you make, but there are no further fees for making deposits or setting up your account.
Nicely-functional site found in my PredictIt review
PredictIt has created a website that ensures that you can get into the trading action with the bare minimum of fuss. Plus it has plenty of cool extra features that are designed to help you get more out of your trades. Here’s a quick guided tour:
Navigating the PredictIt site
As soon as you load the site up, you will see a rolling banner of the day's biggest political stories along with the relevant prediction markets contracts for you to buy and sell.
The various political prediction markets categories are split up into handy sections like Elections, President, Congress, State/Local and World, and you can also use the search tool to find the exact contracts you are looking for.
At the bottom of the site, you'll find all of the necessary legal information like the terms and conditions, privacy policies and the customer support.
Making your trades
Once you have decided which political event contracts you want to trade, you can click on the icon to be taken to the relevant page. Here you will see a graph showing all of the price movements for the relevant trading options since the market was opened.
Below this you will find information about the contracts such as how many people bought and sold the contracts at various prices. There is a separate box in which you can buy and sell your contracts as well as set things like limit orders and so on.
One cool feature in this area is the community chat section where you can open up a portal to see what other traders think about the topic in question. Some of the comments here might be a little juvenile, but it’s a good way to find out more about how the market may shift.
Other features to enjoy at PredictIt
The PredictIt site is nicely streamlined to ensure that you can trade quickly without any unnecessary holdups. Still, the brand finds room to add a handy news section that is packed full of insightful articles about all of the latest political developments.
In addition to this, there is also a PredictIt podcast that's well worth checking out as it tends to cover some of the major markets of the moment. This is also available via the brand's YouTube channel and you can follow the brand on all of the usual social media channels too.
What about a PredictIt app?
It's worth noting that while PredictIt doesn't have a mobile app just yet, it doesn't really need one. This is because the brand has made sure that its website is fully mobile-optimized. This means that you just have to fire up the prediction markets site from the browser of your smartphone or tablet and trade from there. Perfect for anyone looking to get straight into the trading action without having to download any software.
How to sign up and trade at PredictIt
Everything about PredictIt has been made simple and stress-free, and this applies to the brand’s registration process. After all, you only have to take the following steps to sign up and start trading:
Is PredictIt legit in your state?
If you’ve been keeping up with the prediction markets news you will know that there has been plenty of debate about these sites in the past few years. Well the key thing to understand is that prediction markets are legally available in all 50 states and this also applies to PredictIt.
After all, the site has been given the approval to operate in the US courtesy of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). While PredictIt had previously come under legal scrutiny, it was granted a No Action letter by the CFTC in 2014 which allows it to operate for educational purposes in the US.
This means that you can legally use PredictIt from your state, but you should be aware that there are various limitations such as the fact that you can only make a maximum of $3,500 per contract from your trading.
More reasons to trust PredictIt
While there are plenty of prediction markets sites out there, not all of them can be trusted. Thankfully you have nothing to worry about with PredictIt. After all, you just have to check out the brand’s site to find the following trust factors:
- Digital encryption: The PredictIt site uses industry-standard SSL-level technology to encrypt all communication passing between your browser and the brand.
- Privacy policy: This can be found in the website footer and it offers you reassurances about how your data will be responsibly handled.
- Terms and conditions: You can find detailed and clear terms about how the site works and what you are allowed to do on it in the site footer.
- Transparency: It's good to find that PredictIt is fully transparent about how it operates as a not-for-profit organization that exists for educational purposes. Definitely the polar opposite of some prediction markets sites that we can think of.
Safe payment methods for purchasing PredictIt event contracts
Don’t go confusing PredictIt with one of those crypto prediction markets sites where you can make deposits with Bitcoin, Ethereum and so on. This is because you can only make your payments here via regular fiat payment methods like Visa and Mastercard cards or a regular ACH bank transfer.
I found that I was able to make my deposits from a minimum of $10 at a time and the funds went through instantly and without charge. You can also send in a check if you’re still living in the 20th century, and there is the option to make a wire transfer but this carries a $40 fee.
Making your withdrawals from PredictIt
So once you have made some returns from your trading, you will be ready to put in a withdrawal request. This can only be done via ACH bank transfer or a mailed check to the residential address used upon signing up.
Just note that you’ll have to have a fully verified account and that your deposit must have been made over 30 days ago before you can do this. Oh and there is also a 5% processing fee on all withdrawals which might sound a lot, but it’s actually pretty common for such charges to be imposed at prediction markets sites.
Getting help at the PredictIt trading platform
It doesn’t matter whether you are using PredictIt or one of those tech prediction markets sites, as you will want to know that someone has got your back should something go wrong. So I was glad to find that you can get a quick and professional response from PredictIt simply by sending in a message on the email message form on the site. Just so you know, this is also the place where you can post your market suggestions which is a cool idea.
Elsewhere you will find a massive FAQ section that is packed full of insightful answers to all of the questions that you are most likely to ask. I also appreciated all of the video tutorials that explained how you can buy and sell contracts at PredictIt, as well as do things like opening an account and navigate around the site. Don't forget that you could also try social media or even one of the community chat channels if you are looking for extra assistance.
Conclusion - Key findings in this PredictIt review
I found that PredictIt is an excellent choice for anyone looking to make predictions on political matters. There might not be too much in the way of things like culture prediction markets here, but it gives you a quick and easy way to make your trades on a massive amount of US and foreign political questions.
Everything else about the site is as it should be with CFTC approval, good customer support, safe payment methods and clear terms. While there’s no mobile app, the site is easy enough to use from your mobile browser. So be sure to hit any of the links for PredictIt in the banners of this page, register your account and make your trades on the biggest political stories of the day.