ADI Predictstreet faces GGL probe in Germany over World Cup betting access

Germany’s federal gambling regulator, the Gemeinsame Glücksspielbehörde der Länder (GGL), is investigating whether ADI Predictstreet allowed German customers to place World Cup bets and whether its promotions breached local advertising rules. For PSPs and gambling operators, the point is straightforward: if a platform can be reached from Germany without local authorisation, the regulator will look at both access and promotion.

1. The GGL said it has launched an investigation into ADI Predictstreet, the prediction market operator that has been visible during the football World Cup through its partnership with FIFA. The company is based in the United Arab Emirates and received a gambling licence in Gibraltar in time for the tournament, but it does not have a licence to offer betting in Germany or other regulated European markets.
2. According to Inside World Football, the regulator is examining two separate questions: whether ADI Predictstreet’s World Cup promotions violated German advertising rules, and whether German residents were able to access the service. That distinction matters in practice, because one issue is marketing into a restricted market and the other is actual market access.
3. The FIFA deal has given ADI Predictstreet broad exposure through pitch-side LED boards, stadium screens, press conferences and television broadcasts. In the US, the company has entered into an arrangement with Fanatics, while the Commodity Futures Trading Commission says prediction platforms are financial products rather than gambling. Outside those arrangements, the company does not hold gambling licences in other jurisdictions.
4. German law bans the promotion of gambling services without local authorisation and also imposes rules around addiction prevention, youth protection, spending limits and self-exclusion. After the probe started, ADI Predictstreet restricted access in Germany; users trying to log in now see: “Access from your location (DE) is restricted (Country DE is blocked).”
5. A GGL spokesperson said: “As a result of the supervisory measures and the official intervention, the provider has since reacted and blocked access to its service for users from Germany.” The case lands in a wider European crackdown: nine regulators from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland recently issued a joint warning over prediction markets used to bet on the World Cup, and several operators, including Kalshi and Polymarket, have already faced blocking orders in some European jurisdictions.

The regulators’ public line is also unusually direct. They said these platforms are not licensed, do not offer safeguards, are open 24 hours a day, and do not have built-in betting limits beyond the amount staked, time limits, or identity checks to verify legal age. For any PSP or acquiring partner, that is the kind of language that usually means one thing: the compliance question is no longer theoretical.