Malta Extends a Casino Supplier's Licence to Run Prediction Markets for Operators

Hacksaw Group, a Stockholm-listed developer of slots and other casino games, said on 15 October 2026 that it had launched a business-to-business prediction-markets platform, and that the Malta Gaming Authority had approved an extension of its licence for it. In its own words: Malta Gaming Authority extends existing B2B Critical Gaming Supply License to cover Type 3 Gaming Services.

Type 3 is the MGA's category for peer-to-peer games, in which players bet against each other and the operator takes a commission instead of the risk. Hacksaw already held Type 1 authorisation, the category for casino games played against the house.

Unlike Polymarket or Kalshi, Hacksaw does not plan to serve players itself. Its platform lets licensed operators offer prediction markets to their existing customers without building the technology, and it is designed to pool peer-to-peer trading across Hacksaw's network of operators, the company said.

The release gives no list of operators, no launch markets and no date for the first live market. It cites a Bernstein estimate that annual prediction-market volumes could reach about 1 trillion dollars by 2030.

A day later, on 16 October, an MGA spokesperson told Vultax that the authority sees significant interest in prediction markets from existing and prospective licensees, and that some products may fit existing licence categories: Type 2 for fixed-odds betting or Type 3 for peer-to-peer and exchange-based betting. The authority declined to discuss individual companies or applications, Vultax reported.

Hacksaw's extension is the first concrete case of that route in Vultax's record. It authorises a supplier in Malta; it is not a licence for any operator to serve players in other EU countries, where most regulators treat prediction markets as unlicensed gambling. Every national measure is in the Europe tracker.

The licence extension is as Hacksaw announced it on 15 October 2026; Vultax has not seen the MGA's licence document. The MGA's statements are from its written answer to Vultax of 16 October 2026.