A panel of the Capital Markets Tribunal approved the Ontario Securities Commission’s settlement agreement with Blockratize Inc. and Adventure One QSS Inc. over the firms’ failure to comply with Ontario’s ban on offering short-term binary options to individual investors. The misconduct related to binary options offered to Ontario investors through the online options trading platform Polymarket between June 2020 and May 2023. The breaches concerned conduct prohibited under Multilateral Instrument 91-102 Prohibition of Binary Options, which bans advertising, offering, selling or trading certain binary options to individual investors in Ontario, including contracts framed as a yes/no proposition, with a term to maturity of less than 30 days and a fixed payout if the proposition is met (or nothing if it is not). Under the settlement, both firms are subject to two-year market bans, including a ban from trading securities or derivatives, and agreed to an administrative penalty of $200,000, a voluntary payment of USD 22,966.75, and a further $25,000 toward the OSC’s investigation costs. The settlement agreement has been published on the Capital Markets Tribunal’s website.
Ontario Securities Commission 2025-04-17
Ontario Securities Commission settlement approved imposing two-year market bans and $200,000 penalty for Polymarket binary options ban breaches
The Ontario Securities Commission's Capital Markets Tribunal approved a settlement with Blockratize Inc. and Adventure One QSS Inc. for violating Ontario's ban on short-term binary options. The firms, which offered these options through Polymarket, face two-year market bans and financial penalties totaling over 200,000 CAD. The settlement details are available on the Capital Markets Tribunal’s website.