Is Polymarket banned? Partly. As of October 2026 the global site, polymarket.com, restricts about 40 countries and territories, the United States among them, while Americans can trade on Polymarket US, a separate exchange registered with the CFTC, the federal derivatives regulator.
The bans come from three kinds of reasons. In the US the problem was registration. In January 2022 the CFTC fined Polymarket's operator $1.4 million for running an unregistered market in yes or no contracts on events, and Polymarket returned to American customers only in late 2025, through a licensed exchange it bought. Abroad the problem is gambling law. From Switzerland and France in late 2024 to Singapore in January 2025 and Spain in May 2026, regulators looked at a platform where people stake money on outcomes and classified it as an unlicensed betting site, whatever the blockchain underneath. And part of Polymarket's own blocked list, Iran, North Korea and Russia among them, is there to comply with international sanctions rather than because of any gambling ruling.
What came next was not a fade. Prediction market trading, led by Kalshi, grew more than tenfold in under a year. In the US the argument has moved to who regulates these markets, Washington or the states, and the Supreme Court has been asked to decide. Abroad the blocked list is still growing.
Updated 25 October 2026
Why the US shut Polymarket out in 2022
Polymarket launched in 2020 and in its first years let anyone, Americans included, trade yes or no contracts on real events. On 3 January 2022 the CFTC settled charges against its operator, Blockratize, for offering these event contracts without either of the federal exchange licences such a venue needs. The order carried a $1.4 million penalty and required Polymarket to wind down the markets that broke the rules, and polymarket.com has blocked US users ever since.
The 2022 order was a licensing failure, not a ruling that prediction markets are illegal. Kalshi had been designated a contract market, meaning a federally licensed exchange, in November 2020 and was listing event contracts legally over the same period. In September 2024 a federal judge ruled that the CFTC could not stop Kalshi listing contracts on which party would control Congress, a ruling the agency stopped appealing in May 2025.
The US story had one more chapter. In November 2024, a week after the presidential election that made Polymarket famous, FBI agents seized chief executive Shayne Coplan's phone in a raid on his New York apartment, part of an inquiry into whether the platform was still taking bets from Americans. Coplan was never charged, and in July 2025 the Justice Department and the CFTC closed their investigations.
Why other countries block it
Outside the US the reasoning was different and far more uniform. Gambling regulators asked what users actually do on the platform, stake money on an outcome and collect if they are right, and concluded it was betting offered without a local licence. How the bet settled did not matter. France's gambling authority, the ANJ, said in its statement of November 2024 that the issue was the nature of the offer under French law, not the use of crypto. What the platform did mattered more than how it was built, a lesson crypto keeps relearning about decentralization.
Singapore's ban stands out because the penalty reaches the user, not only the operator. In January 2025 its Gambling Regulatory Authority blocked the site as an unlicensed gambling operator, and under the Gambling Control Act 2022 people who use such sites face fines of up to S$10,000, up to six months in prison, or both.
The list kept growing. Switzerland added Polymarket to its blocked domains in November 2024, and Poland and Belgium followed in early 2025, per CoinDesk's timeline. Portugal and Hungary moved in January 2026, and Spain imposed a temporary block in May 2026 pending an investigation. By then El País counted more than 30 countries that had banned it, with Argentina, Brazil, India and Indonesia among those that moved between March and May. The Dutch gambling regulator decided on 20 January 2026, in a penalty order made public in February, that Polymarket must stop serving the Netherlands or pay up to €840,000, after its investigators deposited money through a Dutch bank and found markets on Dutch cabinet politics. In May the regulator moved to collect €420,000, finding that Polymarket had breached the order.
France shows how these bans escalate. Polymarket agreed in November 2024 to stop taking bets from France, yet in June 2026 the site still drew 578,751 visits from French users, per Similarweb figures the ANJ cited, because a VPN was enough to get around the block. On 16 July 2026 the ANJ ordered French internet providers to block the site outright, citing addictive mechanics and the lack of self-exclusion tools, as CoinDesk reported.
Two lists are easy to confuse here, the countries whose regulators have blocked Polymarket and the countries Polymarket blocks itself. Its own restrictions page, updated on 14 August 2026, covers about 40 countries and territories, among them the United States (the global site only, Polymarket US comes below), the UK, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Brazil, Australia and Japan, plus Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec in Canada. Four of them, Singapore, Poland, Thailand and Taiwan, are close-only, meaning existing positions can be closed but no new ones opened. Not every entry is a gambling ban, since the page says the list combines countries under US sanctions with countries added for regulatory reasons. And the two lists do not match. Spain, Portugal and Hungary are absent from Polymarket's, so the site loading in your country says nothing about whether using it is legal there. Like most crypto regulation, the answer is set country by country.
What came next was a comeback, not a collapse
The bans did not shrink prediction markets. Three things happened instead. First, Polymarket found a licensed route home. In July 2025 it bought QCEX, a CFTC-licensed exchange and clearinghouse registered as QCX LLC, for $112 million, after the CFTC had designated it a contract market on 9 July 2025. An amended order on 24 November 2025 let it take US customers through brokers, and Polymarket US launched its app in early December, starting with sports and a waitlist that was lifted by June 2026. So there are now two Polymarkets, the offshore polymarket.com that still blocks Americans and a smaller US exchange regulated by the CFTC, and our Polymarket explainer covers how they differ.
Second, institutional money arrived. In October 2025 Intercontinental Exchange, the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, agreed to invest up to $2 billion in Polymarket at a valuation of about $8 billion before the investment.
Third, volume took off. Combined monthly trading on Kalshi and Polymarket was under $5 billion in September 2025 and about $24 billion in April 2026, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of data from The Block. A later Pew analysis found it then doubled, from $26 billion in May to $53 billion in July, with about $40 billion of the July total on Kalshi and $13 billion on Polymarket, its US exchange included. Most of the growth is Kalshi's, and our Kalshi vs Polymarket comparison covers how the two leaders differ for a trader.
The crisis now is a fight over who regulates
The argument that closed borders abroad is now aimed at Polymarket's licensed US exchange at home. States that license sports betting say a contract on a football game is a sports bet whichever federal agency oversees the exchange. The exchanges and the CFTC say event contracts are federally regulated derivatives that state gambling law cannot reach.
For Polymarket the fight began on 16 January 2026, when Nevada's Gaming Control Board filed a civil enforcement action in state court against Blockratize, the company behind Polymarket, to stop it offering event contracts without a Nevada gaming licence, as Front Office Sports reported. On 24 September New York's attorney general sued Polymarket US as an illegal gambling operation, nearly two months after suing Kalshi, and Polymarket US sued back in federal court the same day. On 2 October Ohio's casino regulator sent cease and desist letters to ten prediction market platforms and brokers, Polymarket among them, and on 16 October Polymarket US sued Ohio in federal court. Minnesota became the first state to ban prediction markets outright, with a law signed in May 2026 that would make it a crime to operate or promote one there, and a federal judge put it on hold in July after the CFTC, the Justice Department, Kalshi and Polymarket US challenged it.
The appeals rulings so far came in Kalshi's cases, but they bear on Polymarket US too, since both list contracts under the same federal law. The question is whether that law preempts, or overrides, state gambling law, and the courts have split. The Third Circuit sided with Kalshi against New Jersey at a preliminary stage. The Ninth Circuit let Nevada's regulators enforce state gaming law against Kalshi, and the Sixth Circuit found, also at a preliminary stage, that Kalshi had not shown its sports contracts are swaps, the class of derivatives the CFTC alone oversees. New Jersey has asked the Supreme Court to take its case, and on 9 October the CFTC, which has sided with the exchanges, proposed defining event contracts as swaps.
So prediction markets are in a crisis, but a legal one rather than a market one. Sports contracts are what the states are fighting over, and they are a large share of the business. Sports made up 80% of Kalshi's volume and 39% of Polymarket's between July 2024 and early May 2026, per Pew's May analysis.
What this means if you trade on Polymarket
Financial risk can be priced. Legal risk often cannot, and on Polymarket it depends on where you are standing rather than on what you trade. Polymarket's restrictions follow your physical location, not your residency, so the same account can be usable in one country and off limits in the next. A VPN does not change the local law, and Polymarket's terms prohibit using one to get around a block, which exposes the account to penalties under those terms. In Singapore the exposure is personal, with fines and jail on the books for users. In the US the federal route is open through Polymarket US and Kalshi, but the state actions above target sports contracts, so what you can trade may come down to your state and to how the courts rule. Our platform roundup sorts the alternatives by who can actually use them.
The money carries quieter risks of its own. On the global site your cash sits in pUSD, which replaced USDC.e as Polymarket's collateral token on 28 April 2026 and is backed one to one by USDC, so a balance is only as sound as that backing and USDC's own reserves. Polymarket's holding reward covers only a short list of long-dated markets, so most idle balances earn nothing. And in a market with few traders, a large order moves the price against you, as our piece on market liquidity explains.
A prediction market position is a time-limited wager, zero-sum between traders before fees, and the stablecoins you keep in reserve between trades are a separate decision. EarnPark is not available in every country, and its help centre lists the restricted regions, so check that first. Where it is open, EarnPark pays up to 10% APY on USDC as of October 2026, a published rate that needs zero PARK, EarnPark's own token. Two strategies pay that top rate. USDC DeFi, which trades price gaps between venues (Risk Label Cross-Venue), withdraws instantly for a fee. USDC Maker Core, a market-making strategy (Market-Neutral), has a 30 day bonding period, a wait before withdrawals pay out. Both are active trading strategies with no deposit insurance, and the risk statement sets out what can go wrong. If a reserve would sit idle anyway, you can start earning on it.
What to watch next
The Supreme Court comes first. Kalshi's response to New Jersey's petition is due on 9 November, and ESPN reported that the Court was not expected to decide whether to hear the case until December at the earliest. If it takes the case, the federal versus state question could be settled in 2027. Meanwhile the CFTC's swap proposal moves toward a final rule and the state cases against Polymarket US keep moving. The 3 November midterms are the next public test for political markets, with more than $1.4 billion already traded on midterm contracts by 23 October, according to figures the companies gave CNN. Abroad, expect the blocked list to keep growing, since gambling regulators have shown little sign of treating event contracts as anything other than bets.
The pattern so far is simple. Polymarket was banned where it operated without the licence local law required, and it came back where it found one. Whether a contract on a game is a derivative or a bet is now the question that matters most, and in the US it may reach the country's highest court.
FAQ
Why can't I go on Polymarket?
Most likely because of where you are. The global polymarket.com restricts about 40 countries and territories, the United States among them, based on your physical location rather than your residency, and in some countries, France among them, internet providers block the site on the regulator's order. Using a VPN to get around a block breaks Polymarket's terms. Americans can instead use Polymarket US, a separate exchange registered with the CFTC.
Why was Polymarket banned?
For three kinds of reasons. In the US it offered contracts on real-world events without registering with the CFTC, which fined its operator $1.4 million in January 2022, and polymarket.com has blocked Americans since, though Polymarket US now serves them. Countries including France, Singapore, Belgium, Poland and Spain blocked it under gambling law, as betting offered without a local licence. Some entries on Polymarket's own list, such as Iran, North Korea and Russia, are there for sanctions compliance.
Is Polymarket banned in the US?
Partly. The global polymarket.com has blocked US users since its 2022 settlement with the CFTC. Americans can trade on Polymarket US, a separate CFTC-designated exchange that launched in December 2025. Whether its sports contracts can be offered in every state is being fought out, with Nevada and New York suing Polymarket, Ohio ordering it to stop, and Polymarket US suing Ohio in federal court.
Why is Polymarket not gambling?
That depends on who decides, and US courts are deciding it now. Polymarket US and the CFTC treat event contracts as federally regulated derivatives traded on a licensed exchange, and in October 2026 the CFTC proposed defining them as swaps, which would put them under its exclusive oversight. Many US states say a contract on a game is a sports bet whichever agency oversees the exchange, and gambling regulators abroad have treated the global site as unlicensed betting. Federal appeals courts have split, and the Supreme Court has been asked to settle the question.
Why is Kalshi legal but Polymarket isn't?
Kalshi has been a CFTC-designated contract market since November 2020, so it was licensed to list event contracts in the US from the start, while the global Polymarket never registered. Polymarket closed that gap by buying a licensed exchange, and Polymarket US now holds the same federal status as Kalshi. Both face the same state challenges to their sports contracts.
In which countries is Polymarket banned?
Polymarket's own list, updated in August 2026, restricts about 40 countries and territories, including the United States, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Brazil, Australia and Japan, plus four Canadian provinces. Four of them, Singapore, Poland, Thailand and Taiwan, are close-only, meaning users there can close existing positions but cannot open new ones. Regulators in other countries, such as Spain, Portugal and Hungary, have blocked the site themselves, so Polymarket's list is not a complete guide to where using it is legal.
Why was Polymarket banned in Singapore?
Singapore's Gambling Regulatory Authority blocked Polymarket in January 2025 as an unlicensed gambling site. Under the Gambling Control Act 2022, people who use such sites face fines of up to S$10,000, up to six months in prison, or both, so the risk falls on users as well as the operator.
Is Polymarket going to get banned?
Polymarket is more likely to face a patchwork than a single ban. Its US exchange is designated by the CFTC, but whether states can still police its sports contracts depends on litigation that may reach the Supreme Court. Abroad, the number of countries blocking the global site has kept rising since 2024.