Polymarket has quietly geoblocked users in India following a quiet push from local regulators, with local media reporting that US-regulated competitor Kalshi is next on the chopping block. The sudden restriction cuts off one of the world's largest retail trading footprints from the leading decentralized prediction market.
The crackdown stems from India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), which has spent the last year systematically purging offshore betting and gambling apps. While Polymarket operates on-chain using USDC, Indian authorities do not differentiate between decentralized smart contracts and traditional online bookmakers. Under the country's Public Gambling Act and strict IT rules, prediction markets are classified as illegal wagering platforms.
For Polymarket, the timing is awkward. The platform recently saw its monthly volume plunge from a US election-fueled peak of $2.5 billion in October to around $1 billion in November. Losing friction-free access to India's tech-savvy retail base threatens to accelerate this post-election liquidity drain. While local traders are already routing traffic through VPNs to bypass the domain block, the added friction inevitably dampens active user metrics and on-chain volume.
The threat to Kalshi highlights the limits of US regulatory compliance abroad. Kalshi's CFTC-regulated status offers zero protection against Indian enforcement. New Delhi demands local licensing, strict KYC, and compliance with its aggressive tax regime–including a 30% flat tax on crypto transactions and a 28% levy on online gaming deposits. For offshore platforms, complying with these terms is economically unviable.
Traders must now watch how Polymarket handles VPN traffic, as stricter IP-filtering could permanently lock out Indian liquidity. The next critical indicator is the release of MeitY's official blocklist, which will confirm whether Kalshi and smaller decentralized betting protocols like Azuro face the same domain-level ban.
India Blocks Polymarket as Regulatory Crackdown Targets Betting Sites
India has launched a crackdown on prediction markets, causing Polymarket to go dark in the country, with Kalshi reportedly next in line.