Spain Blocks Polymarket and Kalshi, Adding to a Growing Global Crackdown on Prediction Markets
Spain's gambling regulator ordered internet service providers to cut access to Polymarket and Kalshi on May 26, joining a wave of countries that have moved against the two largest prediction market platforms within five days.
The Directorate General for Gambling Regulation (DGOJ), which operates under Spain's Consumer Rights Ministry, published the blocking order in the country's official state gazette. The agency cited both platforms' failure to hold Spanish gambling licenses and their lack of required consumer protections, including identity verification systems, age checks, and tools for self-excluded gamblers. Spanish ISPs have 7 to 10 days to implement the blocks. The restrictions are described as precautionary measures while disciplinary proceedings run their course, a process expected to take three to four months.
Spain's position is blunt. According to the official gazette notice, "a wager on an uncertain future outcome is gambling," with the full statement further specifying that the use of crypto or blockchain infrastructure does not change this classification. Neither Polymarket nor Kalshi had issued a public statement in response as of publication. Spanish regulators also did not notify either company at known foreign contact addresses before publishing the order.
Three Countries in Five Days
Spain is not acting alone. India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology blocked Polymarket on May 21 under the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act 2025, classifying it as prohibited "online money gaming." A separate order targeting Kalshi was reportedly being prepared. The day after India acted, Indonesia's Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs moved against Polymarket as well. The Indonesian ban had a political dimension: a live contract on the platform was offering bets on whether President Prabowo Subianto would leave office before 2029. That market had attracted $51,530 in volume and placed an 11% probability on the outcome. Alexander Sabar, Indonesia's Director General of Digital Space Supervision, stated that "the government will not provide space for any form of online gambling in Indonesia." The ministry also said it was tracing Polymarket's affiliated social media accounts for potential restrictions.
Spain is now the third European country to take formal enforcement action in 2026 alone. Portugal blocked the platforms in March, and the Netherlands threatened fines of 420,000 euros per week, though it stopped short of issuing a formal ISP blocking order. Earlier enforcement actions in France, Belgium, Poland, Italy, and Romania stretch back to 2024 and 2025. Polymarket is currently blocked or restricted in more than 33 jurisdictions worldwide.
Scale of What's Being Restricted
The platforms being targeted are not fringe products. Over the past 30 days, Kalshi processed approximately $5.9 billion in trading volume and Polymarket approximately $3.8 billion. Together they account for roughly 88% of the $11 billion in total volume across the top prediction market platforms globally. The broader sector grew by approximately 130 times between early 2024 and 2025.
Polymarket runs on the Polygon blockchain and settles trades in USDC, a dollar-pegged stablecoin. On-chain dashboards on Dune Analytics track the platform's open interest, unique users, trade counts, and trade volume in real time. Despite an increasingly hostile regulatory environment, Polymarket's user retention rate ranks in the top 15% among crypto applications tracked by Dune and research firm Keyrock, beating 85% of the 275 projects in the dataset.
What This Means Outside the US
The United States has moved in the opposite direction. Kalshi holds a license from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as a Designated Contract Market, and Polymarket's US operations run through QCX, a CFTC-registered entity. A Third Circuit court ruling on April 6, 2026 affirmed federal authority over state gaming regulators for these products, though Massachusetts, Nevada, and Arizona continue to challenge specific contract types, which limits the finality of that ruling. That legal structure provides no protection elsewhere. None of the three jurisdictions, Spain, India, or Indonesia, recognizes CFTC licensing as a basis for lawful operation.
For users in South Asia, the India block is the most consequential development. MeitY issued an advisory on April 25, 2026, warning VPN providers that users were bypassing domestic restrictions. Both Polymarket and Kalshi continued onboarding Indian users after that advisory, a decision the government likely viewed as defiance and one that appears to have accelerated the enforcement timeline. The advisory signals that authorities are aware of technical workarounds and may escalate to app store removals or payment gateway restrictions.
Africa remains the most open major market. Luno launched 24-hour crypto price direction prediction markets in Nigeria and South Africa in March 2026, in partnership with US-based Limitless, offering positions to KYC-verified users with entry limits ranging from 3 USDC to 10,000 USDC. Luno's Nigeria Country Manager described the product as "a natural evolution of how our customers already engage with cryptocurrency." No African jurisdiction has issued a formal ban on Polymarket or Kalshi. However, Nigeria's Lagos State Lotteries and Gaming Authority designated another prediction market operator, Bayse Markets (formerly Gowagr), illegal in 2025. The regulatory window in Africa is open but may not stay that way.
The Core Dispute Has No Global Resolution
The central disagreement driving every ban is one of classification. Regulators in Europe and Asia treat prediction markets as gambling products. US regulators treat them as financial derivatives. The EU has no unified framework under its Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation (MiCA), which is set to finalize its grandfathering period in July 2026 without addressing prediction markets at all. Gibraltar, a British Overseas Territory on the southern edge of Europe, became the first jurisdiction in the region to license a prediction market operator, approving PredictStreet on March 26, 2026, but that framework remains narrow and untested at scale.
Until regulators in major markets agree on whether these platforms are financial instruments or gambling products, operators face a jurisdictional maze with no clear path to compliant global access. The enforcement actions in Spain, India, and Indonesia each confirm that decentralized infrastructure and blockchain-based settlement do not shield operators from domestic gambling law. The regulatory window in Africa, currently the most permissive major market, is under pressure as national authorities monitor developments elsewhere. In India, the government has signaled that formal blocks may be only the first step, with app store removals and payment gateway restrictions as potential next moves. The pace of enforcement in the first five months of 2026 suggests the window for unregulated global access is closing faster than the industry had anticipated.