Canada has banned some prediction markets. Wealthsimple is showcasing them anyway
(www.nationalobserver.com)
Sunshine
CanadaWealthsimple's new prediction markets app shows Canadian users popular markets, such as who will win the 2028 US presidential election, even if the company can't let users bet on them due to Canadian laws. Experts suspect the approach is "teasing" Canadians in a bid they will pressure regulators to loosen the rules.
I always knew they were into this kind of thing considering how much they shill for crypto, private equity, direct indexing, leverage, option trading… literally every product offered beyond the basic ability to buy ETFs is a scam. The financial industry is by and large financed by scams. We had old school scams like selling trash mutual funds to retirees (TD style), and we have new scams like Private Equity where you get "exclusive" access to trash mutual funds. And now instead of getting people addicted to gambling with stock options, they are straight up aiming for regular gambling with prediction markets.
I'm disappointed but not really surprised. If anything, I'm thankful they made it a separate App instead of shoving it into the main Wealthsimple App, at least for now.
This has me genuinely looking at a local credit union. I left RBC for WS because I didn't want to pay a monthly fee and they made investing in ETFs easy. But operating actual unironic not-shitting-you gambling services cannot end well.
I've been with a credit union my whole life. I still only pay like $3-4/month for my accounts. I guess I can't speak much to what I'm missing out on but at least have never felt any regret about putting my money into a credit union. Hope you can find a good one!
I hate them calling it prediction markets. We have words for this acivity and related pathologies too.
Unfortunately, gambling is the only way many rich people can enjoy life. As such it pumps exorbitant amounts of money into blood sports like boxing and animal racing. Stuff where the odds are close but the outcome is unpredictable, cuz really they just want to see the monkey dance.
Opening it up to us is just to grease the wheels.
Lotteries used to be illegal in Canada. I shudder to think at how much my mother has spent on 6 fucking 49 over the course of my life.
Yeah, I wasn't expecting this level of sleaze from Wealthsimple, but in the end they are a mix of tech-bros and bankers so I shouldn't have been surprised.
Wealthsimple/etc all exist to create exit liquidity for the hedge fund managers who have been doing automated trading long before 'AI'.
I’ve never unsubscribed so hard in my life. I used to trust them with robot investing but now I do it all myself.
They were smart to get one of the country’s best credit card programs otherwise I’d probably have jumped ship for a more predictable boring option like questrade.
Their credit card offering looked great, but they wanted to do the persona identity scan with driver license and pictures etc to get it. Fuck that. As if my existing account isnt sufficient.
They didn’t do that with me, but FWIW I emailed their support team letting them know if they ever wanted me to submit my ID to Palantir I would close up.
Well, glad you got it, its a good card!
I sent them an email saying i was declining to continue because of it and remove it from my account, and they didnt offer a way without it.
Not that a national bank is any worthier, but they do tend to have a better app, browser, and trading interface.
I'm not surprised to hear of their continued moral degradation given how thoroughly they shilled for crypto back in the day. That alone probably gave some late rug pullers enough of a boost to get out unscathed.
