Smarkets review: RBI licence, SBK and two iPhone apps

One licence, two brands

Smarkets and Betfair Exchange are the two exchanges on the Irish register that hold an intermediary licence alone, with no separate Remote Betting licence. The register lists one entry for Smarkets Malta Limited, with two trading names: Smarkets and SBK.

A Remote Betting Intermediary licence covers a business that provides the facilities for people to bet with each other, which is what an exchange does. For comparison, Betdaq and Matchbook each held both an RB and an RBI licence, while Betfair Exchange, like Smarkets, appears on the register with an RBI licence (GRAI-1074-RBI-26-0001).

The company name matches everywhere we looked

On some exchanges the name on the licence and the name selling the app differ. Smarkets is consistent: Smarkets Malta Limited is the licence holder on the GRAI register and the App Store seller of both of its iPhone apps in the Irish storefront (read 11.11.2026). That does not tell you anything about prices, but it does make it easy to know whom you are dealing with.

Two iPhone apps

Two observations. First, the exchange app is now named "Smarkets: Prediction Markets". The name is Smarkets' own choice in the store listing; we have not tested which markets the app shows to an Irish account, so we do not claim it offers prediction markets in Ireland. Second, SBK has four times as many ratings as the Smarkets app in the Irish store, though both samples are small next to Betfair Exchange's 2,226.

We have not installed either app. Android: not checked.

Smarkets commission: no rate we can print

Smarkets' help centre returns a script-based bot check to our server, and smarkets.com is geo-blocked for our location. Commission figures appear widely on comparison sites, but those are affiliates, and we do not treat them as a source. So we print no rate.

What matters is easy to check yourself once you can see the rate in your account terms. The method below works for any exchange.

Whether Smarkets charges commission per market or per bet matters if you trade in and out of a position; Betdaq, for example, charged on net winnings per market. Whether Smarkets applies different rates by sport, by customer tier or on SBK is not confirmed. The odds calculator does these sums for any rate you enter.

Lay first, back later

An exchange lets you start from the lay side. If you think a price will drift, you can lay now and back later at a bigger price to lock in a result. The prices are illustrative.

If the price shortens instead of drifting, the same sum fixes a loss. Until the second bet is matched, the full €45 liability is at risk.

Where Smarkets sits among the licensed exchanges

Exchange	Licence holder	Licence types	Expires
Smarkets, SBK	Smarkets Malta Limited	RBI	11.08.2029
Betfair Exchange	Betfair International plc	RBI	10.08.2029
Matchbook, easybet	Triplebet Limited	RB + RBI	30.09.2029
Betdaq	Exchange Platform Solutions Limited	RB + RBI	29.07.2029 / 30.07.2029; trading stopped 21.10.2026

Source: GRAI register updated 20.10.2026. The Betdaq trading date is from iGaming Business, 14.10.2026.

Offers on Smarkets and SBK

We cannot read Smarkets' current offer terms. If you see one: free bets and similar offers are legal in Ireland now, while the ban on inducements in the Gambling Regulation Act 2024 has not been commenced yet.

What Irish law adds

Like every remote licensee, Smarkets must verify identity and age before registration (since 1 July 2026), may not take credit cards and must offer the option to set limits (since 5 February 2026, S.I. No. 31/2026). What has and has not commenced is on our Irish gambling law page.

Finding Smarkets on the register

Search the holder name, Smarkets Malta Limited, at grai.ie/register and confirm GRAI-0691-RBI-26-0001; how to read the row is explained on our licensed bookmakers hub.

Reading the back and lay columns

An exchange shows two prices for each selection: the best available back price and the best available lay price, each with the amount of money waiting at it. The gap between them is the spread. On a busy market it may be one tick, for example 2.50 to back and 2.52 to lay. On a quiet one it can be much wider, and the amount waiting may be a few euro.

Before comparing any exchange with a bookmaker, look at both numbers: the price, and how much of your stake it can match. We have not yet looked at Smarkets' market depth from an Irish account.

What customers report: 200 recent Trustpilot reviews

We read the 200 most recent Smarkets reviews on Trustpilot. Smarkets gets fewer reviews than the bigger brands, so this sample reaches back to 12.08.2024. Most come from the UK; only 5 are from Ireland.

Trustpilot shows 2.2 out of 5 from 628 reviews for smarkets.com. In our sample 53% of reviews give 1 or 2 stars and 45% give 4 or 5. Smarkets replied to 190 of them. In 2026 the tone is sharply worse: 51 of the 60 reviews written this year give 1 or 2 stars.

What the 1 and 2 star reviews are mostly about (105 reviews; one review can touch several topics):

• account restrictions: 36
• verification and documents: 32
• customer service: 31
• withdrawals and payouts: 29

What the 4 and 5 star reviews praise most (89 reviews): customer service (48), speed (32), promotions and free bets (18).

How to read this: Trustpilot reviews are not verified customers in the way a regulator would check, companies can invite reviews, and unhappy customers write more often about withdrawals and closed accounts. We use these numbers as a signal of where problems cluster, not as proof, and they do not change any of our 9 checks.

Still unconfirmed for Smarkets

• Commission rate for Irish residents on Smarkets and on SBK: not confirmed by us yet.
• Deposit and withdrawal methods and times: not confirmed.
• Smarkets' verification steps and safer gambling tools: not seen.
• Support channels and hours: not confirmed.
• Which markets an Irish account can see in the app named "Prediction Markets": not tested.

Own account test: pending (see how we rate).

Our take on Smarkets for now

Smarkets has the tidiest paperwork of the exchanges we cover: one company name on the licence and on both apps, and an RBI licence issued 12.08.2026 that runs to 11.08.2029. Its app ratings are middling and the samples are small. As with Matchbook, the commission rate decides the verdict, and we will not give one until we have read it from Smarkets itself. The licensed exchanges, and what happened to Betdaq, are compared on our exchanges hub.