Originally, Plus500 was a B2C company that provided financial trading instruments to operators, including CME Group, that supplies the prediction market infrastructure for FanDuel. Now, Plus500 is both a B2B and a customer-facing provider (B2C), providing futures and prediction markets to over 33 million users around the world.
Plus500 has a big reputation in the global prediction market industry, and through a partnership with Kalshi, it now supplies markets for everything from politics and technology to 10+ sports categories. The sports market depth is vast, and liquidity for the biggest events can easily hit 6 figure sums, if not higher, giving sports fans more than enough options to scour the markets for betting value.
What Users Say About Plus500
| Positive Feedback | Negative Feedback |
|---|---|
| Market size is huge and it have differences categories | For withdrawing funds back, they will keep asking for the same document again and again |
| The platform it’s very straight forward and easy to operate | they make it very easy to deposit money but harder to withdraw |
| Accurate transactions whether you’re depositing or withdrawing funds | They DO NOT have proper record keeping and storage of customers sensitive data |
| the tool training academy is very useful | I’ve been trying to withdraw my own money back … for days |
Plus500 Sign Up Bonus
Plus500 offers up to $200 in welcome bonuses for new players, which you can claim through signing up and making your first deposit. When signing up, you will need to enter an email address to access the platform, and then apply to create a trading account. This is a verification step, where Plus500 requires your personal information and ID verifying documents, as mandated by financial regulations.
Onto the welcome package, this deposit bonus is offered in credit, which can only be used on futures trades and not on any prediction markets.
Plus500 Welcome Bonus: Up to $200 in Credit
A deposit related bonus, Plus500 doesn’t use deposit matches but instead has tiered bonuses based on how much you transfer into your account with your first deposit. And the minimum deposit on this platform is $75.
That minimum deposit of $75 is required to activate your trading account. After finishing the verification, you can finish the application for the trading account by making a minimum $75 deposit. Onto the welcome bonuses, these are broken down in the following scale.
- $20 in Credits: Minimum $500 deposit
- $50 in Credits: Minimum $1,000 deposit
- $100 in Credits: Minimum $5,000 deposit
- $200 in Credits: Minimum $10,000 deposit
As far as deposit bonuses go, this is a pretty steep entry for any sports fan. You need to deposit at least $500 to get a minimal bonus. For which, you only get $20. If this were a deposit match, that would be a boost of 4%. Take into account you can’t use the bonus to fund your prediction market trades, and it is quite a poor value deal.
So if you were to ask us: is the Plus500 welcome bonus worth it? We would say no, it isn’t if you want to trade on the prediction markets. Instead, the real betting value can be found in Plus500’s contract pricing and fixed fee schedule.
What is Plus500
Plus500 is a futures trading app and a prediction market rolled into one. The futures covers equity indices, Forex, crypto, interest rates, and popular markets like S%P 500, NASDAQ 100, and oil and gold. Our review will cover the prediction markets at Plus500.
The main takeaways of this prediction market are its massive market volume, extensive sports categories, and the high trading or betting value provided in those markets.
How Plus500 Works
These use a Central Limit Order Book, meaning you trade directly against other people, with your orders matching the relevant opposite trading price. Instead of trading through an algorithmic trading pool, whereby smart contracts determine the price based on supply and demand. This is good for value bettors, but it generally means niche markets may not have as many trading opportunities.
That is, if the peer trades do not create enough liquidity – but this is not a problem at a major prediction market app like Plus500. We saw popular single-event trades that exceeded $1 million and even those that reached $10+ million.
Sports Coverage
This is one of the great strengths at Plus500. You can open the Prediction Markets, select any of the 10+ sports categories, and browse through the offered markets. Plus500 covers soccer, football, baseball, basketball, golf, MMA, motorsports, tennis, and various niche sports too like eSports. For bigger events, we found it doesn’t just cover main markets, but also goes into depth with auxiliary markets (the equivalent of props here). For instance, for soccer games in popular leagues, we saw totals goals, corners, goalscorer bets, correct score, BTTS and first half outcomes.
Our only complaints are that while there are extensive props and player markets, there is no option to create parlay slips, or combine multiple events into one trade. This is a feature that some sports-related prediction markets offer, but unfortunately Plus500 doesn’t.
Trading Event Contracts
The contracts at Plus500 run on a CLOB structure, meaning they are direct trades against your peers, and not facilitated through smart contracts and algorithmic pricing mechanisms. This means, you can find better value in the market. Plus500 only supports take orders, meaning you can’t create a new Make Order at your own price and wait for someone to fill it. While a risky strategy, this is something that some Plus500 competitors offer, and a feature we thought could add more value to the platform.
Hedging bets is not tolerated at Plus500. If you open a position on one contract, you can’t open the opposite position later. This is not uncommon at prediction markets, but we have reviewed ProphetX and Novig, which are P2P apps with prediction market features – and these do support hedging with early payouts.
Back to Plus500, this platform does have options to take orders, sell them early, or wait until settlement. You can check price movements over time and the liquidity volume, two extremely important metrics that can be utilized to make smarter trades.
Fee Schedule
The fee schedule at Plus500 is fixed, you pay $0.02 for opening a contract, and an extra $0.02 if you close it early. If you leave the contract to settle, then you have to pay the opening fee and no commission when it settles.
Instead of using scalable commission based on the probabilities, you can open positions at any risk level and have to pay the same amount in fees. Plus500 doesn’t charge on deposits, but there are withdrawal fees that you will also have to factor in.
Rewards and Promos
Plus500 does not have many promotions or bonuses for users. It is primarily a financial trading platform, with a massive portfolio of prediction market contracts. But there is a Plus500 refer a friend bonus that is offered to all registered members of the site. Invite a friend to join, and if they complete account verification, make a deposit, and start trading, you will receive a $100 commission credit bonus.
- $100 for successfully referred friends
- $300 for the 5th friend you refer
Your 5th successful referral is rewarded with a $300 cash bonus. In total, that is $700 in Plus500 friend referral bonuses – broken down into $400 in credits for your first 4 successful referrals, and $300 in cash for your 5th referred friend.
Plus500 Banking
The minimum deposit site-wide is $75 for bank card payments, and $200 for bank transfers. These are pretty steep minimum deposit limits, but remember that Plus500 is a platform designated for professional traders and prediction market buffs. The market limits and liquidity back this up; it is a site where high rollers can open positions without worrying about hitting any caps.
| Deposit Methods | Processing Time | Fee |
| VISA | Instant | None |
| Mastercard | Instant | None |
| Apple Pay | Instant | None |
| Bank Wire Transfer | Instant | None |
| Withdrawal Methods | Processing Time | Fee |
| Debit cards | Up to 1-3 days | 1.75% (min $1 max $150) |
| Bank Transfer | Up to 7 days | 1.75% (min $1 max $150) |
Withdrawals have the same limits, $75 for bank cards and $200 for bank transfers. While deposits are not charged, there are withdrawal processing fees of 1.75%, charging a minimum of $1 on any withdrawals, up to $150.
Customer Support
The customer support is worthy of a world class platform like Plus500. The live chat starts with a chatbot, but as soon as you ask a question it finds an agent to connect you to, and this takes the best part of a minute.
Alternatively, there is also a contact form that you can use to send a message to the support staff at Plus500, but we found that the live chat is more than ample for any questions. The FAQ center could use with more detail, but given the swift and efficient chat support, we felt that Plus500 has its bases covered with support.
Related Reviews
Plus500 has a big reputation, and deep markets on sports to attract all bettors who are looking for a good prediction market platform. It is not as sports oriented as Kalshi, with whom Plus500 is partnered. If you don’t want the fees of Kalshi, but want the parlay trading options that aren’t offered at Plus500, a good middle ground is the newer OG.com sports prediction market.
If you are thinking beyond sports, towards financial products and combining these with event contracts on real world events, then we would also suggest you to look at Robinhood, and the crypto-native Polymarket.
Our Verdict
Plus500 is primarily a financial trading platform, but the prediction market offering is substantial and market volume is massive. The higher minimum deposits and larger order limits are poised towards high rollers, who we think would get the most out of Plus500. There are a few shortcomings on the sports side of things, that you should be aware of. We would have liked to see a parlay building function, which would gel well with the extensive market coverage Plus500 offers. Another good addition would be adding opportunities to Make Orders, as Plus500 already uses a CLOB system and has the market volume.
Outside of those, we feel that, for the right profile of trader and sports fan, Plus500 is an elite platform. It has many helpful guides, and anyone who is looking for futures and financial trading options can easily start their journey at Plus500.
(9 votes, average: 4.11 out of 5)
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