Hacksaw Launches B2B Prediction Markets Under a Malta Gaming Licence as the US Calls Them Swaps

The Stockholm-listed slots supplier says the Malta Gaming Authority has extended its licence to peer-to-peer games, the class that covers poker and betting exchanges, so it can supply prediction markets to operators. A European gambling regulator is licensing as gaming a product that Washington proposed six days ago to define as a swap.

• Hacksaw Group launched a B2B prediction markets platform for operators on 15 October and said the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) has extended its B2B Critical Gaming Supply licence to cover Type 3 gaming services, authorising "B2B peer-to-peer prediction market services"
• Under Malta's Gaming Authorisations Regulations, Type 3 means games of chance not played against the house, where the operator takes a commission on the stakes or the prize, such as poker, bingo and betting exchanges
• Hacksaw named no operator customers, launch markets, event categories or pricing
• The approach contrasts with the US, where the Commodity Futures Trading Commission proposed on 9 October to define event contracts as swaps, and with European states that block the largest platforms as unlicensed gambling
• The launch comes three days after Hacksaw said its Q3 revenue growth slowed to 11% to 12%, and its shares closed on 14 October about a third below their level before that update

Hacksaw Takes Its Slots Distribution Into Peer-to-Peer Prediction Markets

Hacksaw AB, the B2B games developer listed on Nasdaq Stockholm, announced on Thursday 15 October a prediction markets platform that operators can run under their own brands. It said the MGA had extended its existing B2B Critical Gaming Supply licence to cover Type 3 gaming services, in addition to its Type 1 authorisation, and that the extension authorises "B2B peer-to-peer prediction market services under the MGA regulatory framework". The release does not date the approval, and iGaming Times could not independently confirm it on the MGA's public licensee register.

The classes come from the First Schedule to Malta's Gaming Authorisations Regulations, under which a Critical Gaming Supply licence is "a business to business licence". Type 1 covers games of chance played against the house with an outcome set by a random generator, the class for Hacksaw's existing games. Type 3 covers "games of chance not played against the house and wherein the operator is not exposed to gaming risk, but generates revenue by taking a commission or other charge based on the stakes or the prize", naming poker, bingo and the betting exchange. Type 2, which Hacksaw did not mention, is fixed-odds betting against the house.

Hacksaw says it will supply the technology and infrastructure while operators keep their brands and customers. The centre of the pitch is a connected volume framework "intended to aggregate peer-to-peer participation across Hacksaw's network of operators", which the company believes will give operators broader capacity from launch. It says the platform was built within its existing cost base and cites a Bernstein estimate that annual prediction market volumes could reach about $1 trillion by 2030. Group chief executive Ana Vrabic Verdir called the category "a compelling new opportunity".

The release names no operator customer, launch market or commercial terms, and does not say whether the product will list sports, political or financial events, a distinction that matters in the EU.

Malta Is Licensing What Others Block

The MGA has said for months that prediction markets fit its framework. A spokesperson told iGamingCapital.mt in April that such products "may fall within the scope of either a Type 2 (fixed odds betting) or Type 3 (peer-to-peer/exchange-based betting) licence", and in September the authority told SiGMA News it had considered "the interaction between gaming regulation and financial services legislation". The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) records Malta as the first EU member state to publicly explore a dedicated framework. Hacksaw has local competition: SOFTSWISS launched fixed-odds prediction market software earlier this year, and in August the Malta-based team behind Elantil launched Mrkts.com, with NYSE-listed High Roller Technologies as its first partner.

Elsewhere in Europe, regulators have mostly reached for gambling law too, with a different result. ESMA said in September that selling event contracts in the EU "generally requires an EU authorisation, which the largest prediction market platforms currently do not hold", and that those qualifying as financial instruments fall under national retail bans on binary options. The Netherlands Gambling Authority held in June that event betting cannot be licensed there at all, a decision Polymarket is now fighting in court on the argument that it sells financial products. Czechia listed Kalshi as a prohibited gambling site on 30 September, with internet providers required to block it by 15 October.

In the US, the CFTC proposed on 9 October to define the term swap to include event contracts on sports, politics, culture and weather. Chairman Michael Selig said the products are "commodity derivatives squarely within the CFTC's regulatory remit" and within its exclusive jurisdiction, according to the agency.

Malta Has Put Prediction Markets in the Same Box as Poker and Betting Exchanges

The most consequential detail is the licence type. By placing a peer-to-peer prediction market under Type 3, the regulator treats it as a commission-based game of chance, legally the same kind of product as a poker room. That is the opposite of the case Polymarket is making in The Hague and the one the CFTC is writing into US rules. The Dutch and Czech authorities reached the same classification; the difference is that Malta licenses the product rather than blocking it. The limit is that an MGA supply licence does not passport: an operator taking the product into the Netherlands would still face a regulator that says event betting cannot be licensed, and a contract on a financial outcome would run into ESMA's binary-options warning. Until Hacksaw names markets, the licence shows what Malta permits, not where the product can be sold.

Liquidity Is the Product, and Hacksaw Has Not Yet Shown Any

A peer-to-peer market only works if someone is on the other side of the trade, which is why the volume framework matters most. Pooling participants across operators is sound in principle, but liquidity has long constrained betting exchanges, and Betdaq closes on 21 October after Matchbook bought its brand but not its customers. The Bernstein estimate describes a global market led by Kalshi and Polymarket, platforms ESMA says hold no EU authorisation. Hacksaw already supplies a large operator base, by its own account; whether their customers will trade event contracts against each other is untested.

The Timing Invites an Obvious Question

The announcement lands three days after Hacksaw said third-quarter revenue would be about €57.5 million to €58.5 million, growth of 11% to 12% against a long-term target above 30%. Its shares closed at SEK 55.25, approximately $5.54, on 14 October, about 32% below their 9 October close of SEK 81.50, according to Yahoo Finance data. Hacksaw does not link the two announcements. But a new vertical with a $1 trillion estimate attached is the story a company under pressure wants investors to hear, and the Q3 report on 3 November is where they can ask what it will earn.

On Hacksaw's account, Malta has given a slots supplier a gaming licence for the product the US regulator calls a derivative, and in doing so has shown that the European answer to prediction markets need not be a block. Whether operators and their customers want it is a question Hacksaw's release leaves open.