Overview
- The Czech Ministry of Finance placed Polymarket on its list of unauthorized internet games and gave internet service providers 15 days to cut access after concluding the platform operates without a Czech gambling licence.
- Czech regulators argued that Polymarket’s binary event contracts amount to betting without standard safeguards for players or anti‑money‑laundering checks, a position summed up by Jan Řehola of the national gambling regulator.
- The Czech action follows a wider pattern of national blocks and restrictions from countries that include India and Argentina and several European states that view prediction markets as gambling rather than investment products.
- Polymarket also faces active regulatory scrutiny beyond access blocks, with U.S. authorities including the Commodity Futures Trading Commission probing parts of its business while South Korea has paused enforcement to hear the company’s response.
- The disputes highlight two likely outcomes to watch: stricter cross‑border enforcement that will limit user access and push compliance changes, or the emergence of bespoke regimes like Gibraltar’s licensing model as an alternative regulatory path.