Jack Paul and Joey Levy co-founded the real-money gaming super app Betr, which announced this Wednesday the acquisition of the long-established brokerage Ascent Capital Management, founded over ten years ago, aiming to embed the prediction market into its app by the end of the year. This move is quite precise—Ascent had obtained registration qualifications from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the National Futures Association as early as 2011, allowing Betr to bypass the lengthy NFA review process and directly become a compliant player. Coupled with the technology cooperation agreement signed with Polymarket in March, these three cards together have made Betr a new contender in the prediction market race, equipped with licenses and engines overnight. PASA's official website previously analyzed the regulatory changes in the U.S. prediction market, mentioning that license acquisitions under a compliant framework are becoming an efficient channel to enter this field.
Licenses first, bypassing the slow registration lane
Levy called this acquisition an "important milestone," with undertones reflecting his determination to bet on the prediction market. His positioning is clear: the prediction market represents the most exciting evolutionary direction at the intersection of interactive entertainment and financial technology. After acquiring Ascent's IB registration qualifications, Betr no longer needs to queue for regulatory approvals and can focus fully on seamlessly integrating Polymarket's technology-driven prediction market into the app. Currently, Betr has amassed over one million paying users and plans to launch contracts covering sports, politics, culture, and other categories by the end of the year, allowing users to freely switch between sports betting, casinos, arcade games, and the prediction market using the same wallet.
Polymarket, as the technical support, has also had turbulent days recently. The Argentine government just ordered the ban and demanded Google and Apple to remove its app, citing it as a "disguised online gambling system." Global regulatory divergence is unfolding in sync—Brazil has deemed prediction markets illegal, while Gibraltar issued the first prediction market operator license last month, with the licensee also claiming to be the official prediction market partner for the 2026 World Cup.
Industry shift signals are getting stronger
Betr's acquisition is not an isolated case; it reflects the entire industry accelerating towards the prediction market direction. Last week, the U.S. sports exchange Sporttrade announced the shutdown of its online sports betting platform, widely interpreted as a strategic shift towards the prediction market. On the same day on Capitol Hill, a sports integrity hearing was largely occupied by disputes over prediction market regulation, with the American Gaming Association insisting that the regulatory authority over sports event contracts should remain at the state and tribal levels, while the Prediction Market Alliance released a flexible posture of cooperation with the federal government.
For Betr, having a license is just an entry ticket; the real test is whether it can run a truly integrated super app model among sports betting, casinos, and prediction markets. The base of a million users gives it the confidence to experiment, but finding a balance between compliance red lines, technological stability, and user education is no less challenging than obtaining a license.
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This article is from "PASA-Global iGaming Leaders," a gambling industry news channel:https://t.me/pasa_news
Original in-depth gambling channel:https://t.me/gamblingdeep
Free data reports: @pasa_research
PASA Matrix: @pasa002_bot
PASA official website: https://www.pasa.news
