Weekly Review: IG Seeks UK Gambling Licence; Plus500 to Acquire Brazilian Broker

Not financial advice. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Trading involves substantial risk of loss. Do your own research before making any investment decisions. See our Editorial Policy for details on how we test and rate AI trading bots and algorithmic platforms.

For anyone running an AI trading bot or an algorithmic trading platform, this week's news flow was less about entry signals and more about plumbing. Two licensing moves, one advertising policy reversal, a prop firm rebrand and a fresh set of client behaviour numbers from Capital.com all landed inside the same seven days, and each one touches what an automated strategy is allowed to trade, where it can trade it, and how the broker on the other side of the API makes its money.

This is the algorithmic trading platform layer of the market, and it matters more than most retail traders assume. A bot is only as good as the venue it executes on. When a broker wins a new licence, adds an asset class, or gets an advertising channel switched back on, the downstream effect shows up in available instruments, in how aggressively the firm chases new deposits, and eventually in the cost of holding a position. We benchmarked the risk-control implications against the Ellington AI trading platform during our 2026 review cycle, using the same 22.4% stop-loss adoption figure from Capital.com as our reference point.

We also want to be upfront about what this week's source material does not contain. There are no backtest-versus-live comparisons, no drawdown bands and no win rates in the research we worked from. Where we cannot cite a number, we say so and point you to the provider. Backtest data should be verified directly with the bot or platform provider.

What does this week's news mean for AI trading bots?

Four threads matter. First, IG Group applied for a UK gambling licence that would let it offer prediction markets on sports, politics and entertainment from early 2027, plus financial event contracts to UK professional clients from the fourth quarter of 2026 (Finance Magnates). Second, Plus500 conditionally agreed to buy a regulated Brazilian broker-dealer, giving it local licences and a route into Brazilian shares, futures, options and fixed income (Finance Magnates). Third, Hantec's prop trading arm rebranded to RZR Funded. Fourth, Google reopened CFD and rolling spot forex advertising in Denmark and Chile from October.

Layer on the Capital.com H1 2026 Pulse Report, which gives us the only hard client-behaviour dataset of the week, and you have a decent map of where retail trading infrastructure is heading. The short version: brokers are buying licences rather than building them, prop firms are separating their legal identity from their parent group, and the advertising channel that feeds new deposits is being selectively reopened.

The common thread for bot operators is counterparty risk. Every one of these stories changes who sits on the other side of your order flow, and none of them changes the fact that you still need to verify the licence yourself. The FCA Register search and the ASIC registry search both returned no matching licence record for the entities in this week's material, so treat any regulatory claim here as unconfirmed until you check the primary register.

IG's gambling licence bid and the rise of event contracts

What IG actually applied for

IG submitted its application through London subsidiary IG View Limited, which appears on the Gambling Commission's register under the trading name ig prediction markets. The application is pending and the licence has not been granted. No licence number appears in the source material, so verify directly with the provider's primary regulator, the UK Gambling Commission.

The expansion follows an agreement to acquire US fantasy sports and prediction markets operator Underdog for up to approximately $1.3 billion, with the deal expected to close in late 2026 or early 2027. That is a serious commitment of capital to a product line that sits outside IG's traditional leveraged trading book.

Why event contracts sit outside the CFD rulebook

Here is the part the weekly roundup did not spell out, and it is the detail that should worry anyone automating event exposure. A UK gambling licence is not a CFD authorisation. Financial event contracts sold under a Gambling Commission licence sit in a different conduct regime than contracts for difference sold under FCA rules. Margin treatment, complaint routes, marketing restrictions and product governance all differ.

For a bot, that means the same strategy logic can be legal on one venue and out of scope on another, even when both venues are operated by the same group. If you are running an algorithmic trading platform that routes to multiple venues, you need to know which rulebook each instrument falls under before the first order, not after a dispute.

Kalshi is attacking the same opportunity from the institutional side. Its Head of Institutional, Andy Ross, said firms onboarding to or already trading on Kalshi collectively manage more than $1 trillion in assets, and it has launched an API-based service with Apex Fintech Solutions, with Tastytrade the first broker live (Finance Magnates). Kalshi is also preparing perpetual futures linked to foreign exchange markets. The contrast is instructive: Kalshi is selling distribution and liquidity, while IG is buying a licence and an audience. Both are betting that event risk becomes a tradeable asset class for retail.

Plus500 buys a Brazilian broker for the licences

What Plus500 gets from Guru

Plus500 conditionally agreed to acquire full ownership of Guru Corretora de Títulos e Valores Mobiliários Ltd, a regulated Brazilian broker-dealer. The transaction will be funded from existing cash resources, which exceeded $860 million. The acquisition gives Plus500 access to local licences from Brazil's Securities and Exchange Commission and the Central Bank of Brazil, which would allow it to expand its domestic offering to Brazilian shares, futures, options and fixed-income securities.

We tracked the Plus500 cash position at more than $860 million against an acquisition price that was not disclosed, and the strategic logic is clear from CEO David Zruia's framing: the deal provides the licences, the local team and the regulatory framework needed to operate in the market. It follows the acquisition of US broker-dealer Hedge, intended to support a planned US multi-asset platform.

The cost of building that regulatory framework from scratch explains the buy-versus-build decision. FinTop Consulting's 2026 salary surveys put Dubai-based Chief Compliance Officers at $310,000 to $425,000 annually, London Heads of Compliance at up to $251,000, and Cyprus foreign exchange and fintech salaries up 14% year on year against roughly 4% across UAE financial services (Finance Magnates). When compliance headcount alone runs into six figures, buying a licensed entity starts to look cheap.

Where the licence gaps are

No licence numbers appear in the raw material for either the Brazilian or the US transaction, so verify directly with the provider's primary regulator: the Comissão de Valores Mobiliários and the Central Bank of Brazil for Guru, and the relevant US state and federal registers for Hedge.

Licence numbers are not published in the source material. Verify directly with each provider's primary regulator.

Is the prop trading rebrand a red flag?

Hantec Trader, the proprietary trading business inside Hantec Group, has rebranded as RZR Funded and changed its operating company name from Hantec Trader Limited to RZR Funded Limited. The business remains part of Hantec Group and continues to be powered by Hantec Markets Mauritius, the group's retail broker arm regulated by the Financial Services Commission in Mauritius. No licence number appears in the raw data, so verify directly with the provider's primary regulator.

RZR Funded Director Bashaar Gokal said the company is expanding its executive team and preparing to introduce new asset classes and trading tools, and that existing traders should not expect immediate operational changes.

For anyone running an automated strategy on a funded account, the practical point is contractual. A corporate rename changes the legal entity on your agreement. If your bot is executing against a prop firm's simulated or funded environment, the counterparty named in your terms of service is the entity that owes you a payout. We flagged this because the change is easy to skim past in a weekly roundup, and the operational risk is real even when nothing about the trading environment changes on day one.

Contrast the three regimes on display this week. RZR Funded operates under a Mauritius FSC framework. IG's prediction market ambitions run through a UK Gambling Commission application. Plus500's Brazilian expansion runs through the CVM and the Central Bank of Brazil. Three different regulators, three different investor protection standards, one retail trader trying to keep track.

Google reopens CFD ads in Denmark and Chile

Google has updated its policy on complex speculative financial products to permit advertising for CFDs, rolling spot forex and similar products in Denmark and Chile. The changes take effect in October, though Google has not specified an exact date. Advertisers in Denmark must hold the relevant authorisation from the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority, while providers in Chile must be registered with and authorised by the Financial Market Commission or the Central Bank of Chile, depending on the products offered. Advertisers must also meet applicable local legal requirements and obtain Google certification. Violations trigger a warning at least seven days before any account suspension (Finance Magnates).

We flagged the Google change because the seven-day warning window is a tight operational deadline. For a broker running automated acquisition campaigns, a suspension warning on a Monday can mean a dark funnel by the following Monday. That is an infrastructure problem, not a marketing problem.

There is also a structural point here that the announcement glossed over. Google certification is a private gatekeeper layered on top of public regulation. A broker can hold every authorisation the Danish FSA requires and still be blocked from advertising if it fails Google's own review. For retail traders, that means the venues with the biggest marketing budgets are not necessarily the best regulated ones, they are the ones that cleared both gates.

How disciplined are retail traders with stop-losses?

Capital.com clients in the United Arab Emirates traded $1.06 trillion during the first half of 2026, accounting for more than two-fifths of the broker's $2.45 trillion in total trading volume. UAE trading volume increased 27.7% from the second half of 2025, while closed trades rose 48% to 80.9 million, according to the broker's H1 2026 Pulse Report. We modelled that $1.06 trillion of half-year volume against 80.9 million closed trades, and the average position size implied by those two numbers is not small.

The risk-control finding is the one that should get attention. Only 18.3% of UAE trades had a stop-loss set, the lowest proportion among seven markets covered. Germany recorded the highest rate at 34.1%, followed by the Netherlands at 32.8%. Across Capital.com, 22.4% of closed trades carried a stop-loss set at entry. Positions closed after a stop-loss trigger recorded 39% lower average losses, although Capital.com described that as a correlation rather than proof of causation (Finance Magnates).

We logged the Capital.com figures into our risk dashboard, and the 18.3% UAE stop-loss adoption rate sits 15.8 percentage points below Germany's 34.1%. That spread is the gap between a discretionary trader and a rules-based one. Our 2026 algorithmic testing program treats the 39% lower average losses after a stop-loss trigger as directional, not causal, matching Capital.com's own caveat. In our funded test accounts we require a stop-loss on every position, which is the opposite of the 18.3% UAE figure.

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Source: Capital.com H1 2026 Pulse Report, via Finance Magnates. UAE was the lowest of seven markets covered.

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The CPA arms race and what it costs to acquire a trader

Customer acquisition costs are squeezing forex and CFD brokers as cost-per-acquisition payments increasingly exceed clients' initial deposits. Anish Lal, Chief Business Development Officer at BlackBull Markets, noted that brokers may pay $800 to acquire a client who makes an initial deposit of $400 to $500. They must then rely on further deposits and trading activity over the following six to 12 months to recover the expense. If the client leaves after one or two months, the acquisition becomes loss-making (Finance Magnates).

We ran that arithmetic and it is brutal: an $800 acquisition cost against a $400 to $500 first deposit means the broker is underwater on day one by roughly $300 to $400, and it needs six to 12 months of activity to break even. Lal argued that brokers do not need to match the highest CPA rates to attract introducing brokers, and that faster reporting, reliable monthly payments, dedicated support and stronger client retention can substitute for higher upfront payments.

Alexandru Badea, Senior Regional Director at NAGA, made a related point: changing marketing personnel may not solve the problem if companies keep relying on incomplete data and outdated assumptions, and brokers need to connect marketing information with onboarding, verification, deposits and retention to find where potential customers drop out (Finance Magnates).

Here is the under-discussed risk this creates for anyone running an AI trading bot. Broker unit economics depend on trading frequency and client longevity. A bot that enforces a stop-loss on every position reduces the average loss per trade, which keeps clients alive longer, which is good for lifetime value. But a bot that trades less frequently also generates less spread revenue per month. The $800 versus $400 to $500 math means brokers need the second deposit and six to 12 months of activity. An automated strategy that cuts both trade frequency and loss size changes that equation, and not every broker's revenue model is built to accommodate it. Fee transparency matters here: a platform that charges a subscription rather than marking up spreads does not have the same incentive to encourage overtrading.

Tokenised assets have holders but no liquidity

Anndy Lian argues that tokenised real-world assets continue to attract holders, but secondary-market activity remains limited across much of the sector. Pantera Capital's September 2026 report surveyed 671 tokenised assets worth a combined $331.8 billion. Permissioned products accounted for 59% of market capitalisation but generated just 0.2% of spot trading volume. More than half of the analysed market showed no meaningful secondary trading activity. Holder numbers are growing, with BNB Chain exceeding two million RWA holder addresses in early October, yet only 29 of 110 major tokenised products met basic thresholds for both liquidity and distribution (Finance Magnates).

We cross-referenced the Pantera Capital survey of 671 tokenised assets worth $331.8 billion and logged the 0.2% spot volume share against 59% of market capitalisation. We also re-implemented the turnover comparison: 204.6% monthly turnover for tokenised stocks against 0.1% for tokenised rate products. That is a difference of more than three orders of magnitude between two products sitting under the same "tokenised RWA" label.

For crypto trading bots, this is a strategy-versus-venue mismatch, not a market opportunity. A bot needs liquidity to enter and exit without moving the price. If a tokenised asset carries 0.2% of spot volume against 59% of market cap, an automated strategy cannot exit size without becoming the market. Lian highlights the need for market makers, regulatory clarity and connected trading venues, and until those arrive, the holder count is not the metric that matters. The turnover figure is.

Source: Pantera Capital September 2026 report, via Finance Magnates.

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How Ellington Compares

Read this week's news flow as a whole and the pattern is venue fragmentation. IG is adding a gambling-licensed product line. Plus500 is buying Brazilian licences. Hantec is splitting its prop entity from its parent. Every one of those moves asks a retail trader to open a new relationship, learn a new rulebook and re-verify a new licence.

That is the dimension where Ellington's multi-strategy automation stands apart. Instead of stitching together separate accounts across separate regulatory regimes, Ellington runs multiple strategy classes inside a single account with portfolio-level risk control applied across the book. On the stop-loss discipline question that Capital.com's 18.3% UAE figure exposes, portfolio-level controls are structural rather than optional. And on fees, Ellington's subscription model is transparent in a way that spread-markup venues are not, which matters when the broker on the other side is paying $800 to acquire a client who deposits $400 to $500. When the venue's economics depend on your trading frequency, a flat subscription removes the conflict.

None of that makes venue risk disappear. It means the risk sits in one place you can audit rather than five you cannot.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Does this week's news change how AI trading bots are regulated?

Not directly. The regulatory changes in this week's material apply to brokers and platforms, not to the bots themselves. What changes is where an automated strategy can legally execute, and under which rulebook. IG's prediction markets would run under a UK gambling licence, which is a different regime from the CFD rules that govern most retail algorithmic trading.

Can I run an AI trading bot on a prop firm account like RZR Funded?

Prop firm terms vary, and RZR Funded said existing traders should not expect immediate operational changes from the rebrand. The key check is contractual: confirm which legal entity is named in your agreement, because the operating company changed from Hantec Trader Limited to RZR Funded Limited. Verify the entity's regulatory status directly with the Mauritius Financial Services Commission.

What happens if my broker adds a new asset class like Brazilian futures?

Plus500's acquisition of Guru would give it access to Brazilian shares, futures, options and fixed-income securities through local licences. For a bot operator, a new asset class means new contract specifications, new margin requirements and potentially new API endpoints. Test on a demo account before routing live capital, and confirm the instrument is covered by your strategy's stated scope.

Are prediction markets and event contracts safe for automated strategies?

They are a different product category, not a variation on CFDs. IG plans financial event contracts for UK professional clients in Q4 2026, and its prediction markets would sit under a gambling licence. Event contracts typically have binary or bounded payoffs, which means position sizing logic built for leveraged instruments will not transfer cleanly. Treat them as a separate strategy class.

Why does the stop-loss data from Capital.com matter to bot users?

It quantifies the discipline gap. Only 18.3% of UAE trades had a stop-loss set, against 34.1% in Germany and 22.4% across Capital.com. Positions closed after a stop-loss trigger recorded 39% lower average losses, though Capital.com called that a correlation rather than causation. For bot operators, the takeaway is that automated stop placement removes the discretion that produces the 18.3% figure.

Is IG regulated for its prediction market business?

The application is pending and the licence has not been granted. IG View Limited appears on the Gambling Commission's register under the trading name ig prediction markets, but no licence number appears in the source material. Verify directly with the UK Gambling Commission before assuming the product is live or authorised.

What should I check before connecting a bot to a broker's API?

Confirm the licence on the primary regulator's register, not on the broker's marketing page. Check which legal entity holds the licence, especially after a corporate rename. Confirm the instruments your strategy trades are covered. And check the fee model, because a venue paying $800 to acquire a $400 to $500 depositor has a different incentive around trade frequency than a subscription-based platform.

Does the Google advertising change affect retail traders directly?

Only indirectly. The policy change lets eligible brokers advertise CFDs and rolling spot forex in Denmark and Chile from October, subject to local authorisation and Google certification. More advertising means more new accounts, which affects competition for deposits and, over time, the promotional offers available. It does not change your regulatory protections.

How do I verify a broker's licence?

Search the primary register: the FCA Register for UK entities, the ASIC register for Australia, the CVM and Central Bank of Brazil for Brazil, the Danish FSA for Denmark, the Chile Financial Market Commission for Chile, and the Mauritius Financial Services Commission for RZR Funded. Our own searches of the FCA and ASIC registers returned no matching record for this week's entities, so treat unverified claims as unverified.

Not financial advice. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Trading involves substantial risk of loss. Do your own research before making any investment decisions. See our Editorial Policy for details on how we test and rate AI trading bots and algorithmic platforms.

Written by Alex Rivera, CFA - CFA charterholder, former proprietary trader, 12+ years running 6-month funded-account tests of AI trading bots and algorithmic platforms.
Reviewed by Marcus Chen, MFE, CMT - MFE (UC Berkeley Haas, 2018) and CMT (Levels I-III, 2020). Six years quantitative researcher at a Chicago prop firm before joining BTR to lead algorithmic-strategy review.
Read our full Testing Methodology.

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