South Korea Blocks Polymarket as Gambling Concerns Spread Globally
Quick Reads:
- South Korea blocks Polymarket after its media and communications review commission ruled the platform breaches national gambling laws.
- The commission says Polymarket’s winner-takes-all betting structure on politics, sports and weather encourages speculative gambling.
- Polymarket’s defense, no Korean-language service, no won payments, noncustodial smart contracts, was rejected by regulators.
- South Korea joins France, Australia and Germany in blocking the platform on similar grounds.
South Korea has become the latest country to move against Polymarket, with authorities ordering that access to the platform be blocked nationwide. The decision, confirmed this week, adds South Korea to a growing list of nations pushing back against crypto-powered prediction markets.
According to the ruling, Polymarket falls squarely under South Korean laws that prohibit facilitating gambling or running gambling venues, as well as rules under the National Sports Promotion Act that ban unauthorized betting-style activity. Regulators pointed specifically to Polymarket’s structure, where users wager on binary outcomes across politics, sports, and even weather events, arguing this format encourages speculative, betting-like behavior rather than genuine information trading.
The commission also flagged Polymarket’s operational role in the process, setting trading rules, running the markets themselves, and handling crypto deposits, withdrawals and settlements while collecting transaction fees along the way. In its defense, Polymarket had told the commission that it doesn’t offer Korean-language support, doesn’t accept Korean won, and functions through noncustodial smart contracts rather than directly holding user funds. Regulators weren’t convinced. They said technical features like decentralization and blockchain-based order books don’t exempt a platform from South Korean law when it’s still functioning as a de facto betting service for users in the country.
This isn’t Polymarket’s first brush with international regulators. France, Australia and Germany have all previously blocked access to the platform over similar gambling-related concerns, signaling a broader global trend of governments treating crypto prediction markets with the same scrutiny as traditional betting platforms, regardless of how they’re technically structured on the blockchain.
For now, South Korean users looking to access Polymarket will find the platform blocked, as regulators continue tightening their stance on crypto-native betting products operating in the country.
