Banned in Britain, but Prediction Markets Jobs Are Booming

A hedge fund desk that started life crunching sports statistics has become the source of some of the strangest prediction markets jobs in finance. AQR Capital Management, the quant firm founded by Cliff Asness that managed around $51bn as of mid-2025, is advertising for a quantitative prediction markets summer analyst for 2027 at its Greenwich, Connecticut base. The brief is to find trading strategies in contracts on finance, crypto, sport, politics and culture.

That is a sharp turn for a firm built on published academic work, whose founding principals met in a University of Chicago PhD programme. As recently as November 2025, Asness said publicly that AQR was considering prediction markets but had not entered them. According to eFinancialCareers, the research now sits with a small group that had been doing sports analytics and academic papers, including one testing asset-pricing anomalies out of sample.

For anyone in Britain weighing a quant career, there's an awkward catch. The event contracts these analysts would model are largely off-limits to UK retail traders, and both the Gambling Commission and the Financial Conduct Authority set out positions on them earlier this year. The roles are real and well paid. The market itself is closed here.

From Sports Models to Event Contracts

The person now driving the effort is Christian Berry, hired as a vice president in July. He spent three years as an investment engineer at Bridgewater Associates and founded NextProd, a startup letting ordinary consumers put money into actively managed systematic Kalshi strategies. That's an unusual CV for AQR — part institutional quant, part retail-facing founder — and it tells you the firm wants people who already know how these venues behave under stress.

What the Pay Actually Looks Like

Earlier in 2026, AQR brought in an experienced prediction markets quant on compensation of up to $260,000 a year, comfortably six figures in sterling. Rival prop firm DRW has run a public listing for a prediction markets trader at a base of $175,000 to $200,000 plus a discretionary bonus. These aren't exotic numbers by quant standards — they're standard researcher and trader money, which is the point. Firms are paying market rate for a market that barely existed three years ago.

Why You Can't Trade This From London

Britain has taken a different view from Washington. Where US regulators licensed event contracts as derivatives, UK authorities looked at the same product and mostly saw betting. That split is why the hiring boom is happening in Connecticut, Chicago and Philadelphia rather than Canary Wharf.

The Gambling Commission Drew Its Line First

In a blog post on 4 February 2026, the Gambling Commission said prediction-market products appear to meet the definition of a betting intermediary under the Gambling Act 2005, meaning operators would need an operating licence. It warned platforms against targeting UK customers, and operating unlicensed is a criminal offence. Gambling minister Baroness Twycross confirmed the licensing requirement the same month.

Any commercial product that meets the legal definition of gambling in the UK must be regulated and licensed by the UKGC.

Then the FCA Called Them Binary Options

In a March 2026 report, the FCA split the field: contracts on sport or politics belong to the Gambling Commission, while those referencing financial or certain climatic events fall to the FCA. Its view is that financial prediction-market products are binary options, caught by the retail ban that has been in force since April 2019. The FCA did say it would consider whether further work or rule clarification is needed.

What British Traders Can Actually Use

Polymarket blocks UK IP addresses at platform level and Kalshi remains US-only. What's left are Gambling Commission-licensed exchanges: Smarkets already operates here, and Matchbook has been working on a UK prediction markets product expected during 2026. The mechanics rhyme with betting exchanges British punters already know — which is precisely the regulators' argument.

Where the Prediction Markets Jobs Are

AQR is late rather than early. Susquehanna set up a dedicated event-contracts desk covering Kalshi, reported by Bloomberg in April 2024, and is now a flagship market maker there. DRW, Jump Trading and Jane Street are all active, and Chief Investment Officer reported firms adding traders to prediction-markets teams through 2026. The plumbing is arriving too: Cantor Fitzgerald opened Kalshi block trading to institutional clients via Susquehanna, and BitGo launched OTC access with Susquehanna Crypto in March. CNBC reported on 19 August that hedge funds are preparing to move in properly.

What to Watch Over the Next Year

The growth numbers explain the hiring. Kalshi told Reuters in May that institutional volumes had risen 800% in six months, having said in March that institutional market makers accounted for just 5% of bid matches. It closed May at $17.91bn in notional volume, a ninth consecutive monthly record, and raised over $1bn in March at a $22bn valuation — double its December 2025 mark.

If you're a UK graduate or quant eyeing this space, the practical route is a US desk or a London role at a firm trading these venues offshore, not a British retail account. Watch two things: whether the FCA follows through on clarifying its rules, and whether Matchbook's UK launch actually lands this year. Either would be the first sign the door is opening on this side of the Atlantic.