South Korea Blocks Access to Polymarket

South Korea is shutting the door on Polymarket.
The country’s media and communications regulator has ordered domestic access to the prediction market platform to be blocked after concluding that its structure constitutes gambling under South Korean law.
Regulators pointed to Polymarket markets tied to politics, elections, sports, weather and other events where users can win or lose money based on outcomes they cannot control.
Authorities also argued that Polymarket operates the marketplace, establishes trading rules and provides the crypto-based settlement infrastructure while earning economic benefits from trading activity.
Polymarket pushed back.
The company argued that it operates as a non-custodial peer-to-peer platform using blockchain smart contracts and does not directly hold customer funds.
It also noted that its Korean-language service had been removed and that users cannot make payments in Korean won.
South Korean regulators rejected those arguments, saying technical decentralization or the absence of Korean-language services does not exempt the platform from domestic law.
The move puts South Korea alongside a growing list of countries restricting prediction markets as regulators increasingly debate whether platforms like Polymarket should be treated as financial markets or gambling venues.