This article was originally published in March 2026. Since then, the betting options for SailGP have become more varied…including pages hosted on the SailGP site for commodities including natural gas.
SailGP has been quietly building a betting revenue stream for a while. Its new Smarkets deal has been framed as a milestone – but is it a positive one? And is the sport of sailing set up to deal with prediction markets?
Last week, SailGP announced a commercial deal for Smarkets to become its “Official Sports Trading Partner.” Let’s pause on that phrase and call it what it is: sports betting. The partnership includes the Emirates Great Britain team, the reigning champions, and the press release was full of the kind of corporate PR-speak that has become SailGP’s commercial vernacular. But fundamentally, this deal is an extension of SailGP’s betting revenue stream and it raises questions.
This Is Not SailGP’s First Bet
We’re all adults. There is nothing wrong with a friendly wager on the round-the-cans at the club. Nobody cares when the stakes are a case of beer. But I had not realised that ‘Betting’ sits in the top navigation of SailGP.com.
I have built gambling affiliate sites and I know what affiliate SEO pages look like. It’s right there at sailgp.com/betting – a fully operational affiliate marketing hub: operator reviews, promotional codes, step-by-step guides on how to open a betting account, SEO-optimised content explaining race formats to new bettors, and odds previews for each event. Betting affiliates can earn over $100 per new account and up to 20% commission for the lifetime of the account. SailGP has been earning referral revenue from betting sign-ups since at least June 2025, when it announced partnerships with DraftKings and Bet365 alongside the New York event.
The Smarkets announcement is therefore framed very specifically as a milestone within a sub-category – like NASCAR selling sponsorship for ‘cold snacks’ and ‘hot snacks.’ But this is not just another gambling partner. Prediction markets are a different beast entirely, and the difference matters.
Why Prediction Markets Are Different
Traditional sports betting operates within a heavily regulated framework. Licensed operators carry compliance obligations. Suspicious activity must be reported. Integrity monitoring services, companies like Sportradar, exist specifically to flag unusual patterns to governing bodies. The system is imperfect but the infrastructure is there.
Prediction markets currently exist in a regulatory grey zone, particularly in the United States, where they have grown precisely because they sidestep gambling legislation by being structured as financial contracts rather than wagers. The CFTC rather than gaming regulators has oversight, and the framework for sports integrity monitoring simply does not map onto them. An insider placing a position on a prediction market platform has no equivalent of a bookmaker’s compliance team flagging the bet. And crucially, there is no law in most jurisdictions that makes insider betting on a sports event a criminal offence.
Which leaves the policing of behaviour down to self-governing codes of conduct.
Integrity Questions
SailGP operates as a World Sailing Special Event and uses the Racing Rules of Sailing.
World Sailing has an Integrity Code. The boilerplate on the website states:
World Sailing has adopted this Code as a vital measure to safeguard the integrity of the sport of sailing. The primary objectives include prohibiting any conduct that may improperly impact the outcome of events and competitions, and establishing a robust mechanism for enforcement and sanctions against those who place the integrity of the sport at risk.
By promoting betting, SailGP may be in violation of World Sailing’s integrity guidelines as they are written.
Annex D of the code specifically covers betting and anti-corruption. Its definition of who is covered – a “Participant” is broader than many in the sport may realise. Under Annex D 2.5(c), an “official” includes any person who is the owner of, or a shareholder in, the entities that organise and promote competitions. Team owners and series personnel are not exempt.
Annex D 4.1(a) then prohibits participation in, support for, or promotion of any form of betting related to a competition in the Participant’s sport. The word “promotion” is doing significant work here. Even the Smarkets announcement is promotion of betting on SailGP.
The inside information provision, Annex D 4.4(b), adds a further dimension. It prohibits disclosing inside information to any person where the Participant knew, or should have known, that the disclosure might lead to that information being used for betting. They need not have intended it to be used for betting. They need only have known it might be.
Perhaps most significantly, Annex D 4.6 makes clear that two things are entirely irrelevant to whether a Violation has occurred: whether the Participant was actually competing in the specific event, and whether the result was actually affected. You do not have to prove the bet changed the outcome. The conduct itself is the violation.
The Information Asymmetry Problem
Sailing is a sport of extraordinary complexity. Wind shifts, equipment performance, tactical decisions, crew fitness, boat setup – the variables are almost infinite. That complexity is part of what makes it compelling. It also creates an integrity vulnerability that other sports do not face to the same degree.
The people with material non-public information in a SailGP event are numerous. In a fleet racing format the possibilities extend further. A back-marker team with nothing to lose in a particular race could affect the outcome for leading teams through entirely legitimate tactical decisions. It would not look suspicious. It would look like racing. Prediction markets are specifically designed to reward the person who knows something others do not.
None of this is to suggest anyone has done anything improper. It is to point out that the structural conditions for it exist, that the regulatory framework to prevent it does not, and that the sport has not publicly addressed either fact.
It is pure coincidence that the Smarkets deal was announced days before Team USA beat all the odds to win the KPMG Sydney SailGP event. Did anyone win big?
The Counter-Argument
The defence of this partnership will be made, and it is not without merit. These are elite professional athletes. They compete to win. That is their identity, their livelihood, their DNA. The overwhelming majority will find the suggestion of manipulation genuinely offensive.
There is also an argument that Smarkets, as an exchange rather than a traditional bookmaker, is better placed to detect unusual activity. Exchange prices are set by participants competing against each other. Anomalous position-taking is, in theory, more visible on an exchange than in a traditional book – provided someone is watching.
Sports Entertainment vs Sport
Prediction markets might not last long in their current unregulated form, though given current legislative trends there is little reason to believe they will be reined in any time soon. Once upon a time, entertainment formats were funded through Premium SMS voting, which paid for production and prize money and then some. Producers have signalled that formats may be coming that are funded through prediction markets entirely. The lines between sport and entertainment are blurring, and the commercial logic is pulling in one direction.
SailGP has worked hard to build a reputation as a progressive, forward-thinking championship. It has environmental credentials, a social impact programme, and genuine investment in making the sport accessible and exciting. All of that is admirable. All of it would be fragile in the face of a single well-documented integrity scandal. The sport’s premium sponsors do not wait for investigations to conclude before they manage their reputational exposure.
Prediction markets, done well, can genuinely increase fan engagement. Smarkets has a reasonable reputation. None of this is the issue. The issue is whether the marginal revenue to SailGP and Emirates Team GBR is worth the potential reputational risk.
Questions That Remain
Are participants as defined by World Sailing’s Code of Conduct explicitly prohibited from betting on SailGP events? Is it enforceable? What does ‘integration’ mean in practice, and how will age-verification be handled in a sport that markets itself to young sailors and fans? Does World Sailing consider its existing Integrity Code adequate for events with official or unofficial betting partners and a live affiliate revenue operation?
Or is it simply a case of: everyone else is doing it. Why leave money on the table?
This article raises questions of public interest about sporting integrity and does not allege wrongdoing by any individual, team, or organisation. The author welcomes responses from SailGP and World Sailing.