TL;DR:
- Kalshi added India to its list of 55 restricted jurisdictions after Indian authorities warned providers about the use of VPNs.
- Spain, Indonesia, Singapore, Poland, Portugal, Hungary, Ukraine and Brazil also blocked access to prediction market platforms.
- Kentucky sued five platforms, including Kalshi and Polymarket, for operating sports betting services without a license.
Kalshi added India to its list of restricted jurisdictions, according to an update to the member agreement document. The platform now counts 55 territories whose residents are blocked from accessing the service, primarily due to mounting regulatory pressure on prediction markets worldwide.
The decision came months after India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology warned, in April, virtual private network providers to stop facilitating access to online betting platforms and prediction markets deemed illegal or blocked in the country.
The Global Landscape Grows More Complicated for Kalshi
India is not an isolated case. In May, Spanish authorities blocked access to Polymarket and to Kalshi for violating local gambling laws. Indonesia did the same with Polymarket following the appearance of contracts speculating on whether President Prabowo Subianto would leave office before the end of his term. Singapore, Poland, Portugal, Hungary, Ukraine and Brazil are part of the same pattern of restrictions closing in on these platforms.
Regulatory pressure is not limited to international borders alone. In January, U.S. lawmakers introduced a bill to restrict trading on prediction markets by government officials, after a Polymarket user earned more than $400,000 on a contract tied to the removal of former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, raising alarms about possible insider trading.
The State of Kentucky became the latest to escalate the conflict, filing a lawsuit against five platforms —including Kalshi and Polymarket— accusing them of operating sports betting platforms that are illegal and unlicensed.
Sports Betting at the Eye of the Storm
Kalshi and Polymarket are the two highest-volume prediction market platforms, recording $3.7 billion and $3.2 billion in weekly trading volume, respectively. Sports betting is the most active category on both: according to Defirate data, daily volume in that segment reaches $328 million on Kalshi and $196 million on Polymarket, making it the primary focus of the ongoing regulatory offensive.
