South Korea blocks Polymarket

Yet another country outside of the United States has blocked prediction market Polymarket after deeming it illegal gambling.

South Korea has officially blocked access to Polymarket after a month-long legal dispute with the platform. Last month, South Korean regulators gave the operator a chance to respond to claims they were offering illegal gambling. 

The operator argued that blockchain-based contracts should be exempt from traditional South Korean financial regulation. It had also removed the Korean language service from its platform and did not support the Korean Won. 

"Protecting domestic users"

The Korean Communication Standards Commission (KCSC) have officially prohibited the platform. They took issue with, amongst other things, the fact that South Korean-specific issues made up some of the markets on offer. A spokesperson said:

“Because Polymarket targets South Korea-specific issues (such as ‘August Precipitation in Seoul’) and provides a practical illegal gambling environment to domestic users based on a winner-take-all profit/loss structure driven by chance, an access block is inevitable to protect domestic users.”

This is just one of a host of countries that have taken measures to block prediction markets in the last year. Earlier this month, both Ireland and France took measures to ban them. We've also seen Argentina, New Zealand, Portugal, Germany, Italy, Singapore, Hungary, Thailand, Australia, and the Netherlands take action to either ban prediction markets or to label them as a form of gambling.