Polymarket is dead in India. The website returns “This site can’t be reached” for every user in the country. Refreshing does not help. VPNs are the only workaround, and the government is already going after those too.
The block came from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, known as MeitY. It issued a directive ordering internet service providers to cut access to Polymarket and other prediction platforms. The directive classified prediction markets as prohibited online money gaming under Indian law.
Kalshi, the CFTC-regulated U.S. rival, is still accessible. For now. The Print, citing an anonymous MeitY source, reported that a blocking order for Kalshi has already been prepared and could go live as soon as Friday.
The VPN Warning Came First
MeitY sent an advisory to VPN providers on April 25, weeks before the block went live. The message was direct: Indian users were circumventing domestic prohibitions to access illegal betting platforms. VPN companies were told to cooperate or face consequences.
That advisory was the warning shot. The ISP-level block that followed was the execution. India has used this playbook before. In 2023, MeitY blocked over 200 betting and gambling apps in a single sweep. Prediction markets are now getting the same treatment.
India Is Not the First. It Will Not Be the Last.
This is a pattern. Brazil pulled the plug on prediction markets in April with a single regulatory order. France has been cracking down on crypto-adjacent gambling platforms since early 2026. Singapore tightened its remote gambling act to explicitly cover blockchain-based betting.
The irony is sharp. Prediction market operators had been eyeing Asia as their next growth frontier, with India, Japan, and South Korea as top targets. India just slammed the door. Polymarket is now targeting Japan for approval by 2030, according to Bloomberg. Four years is a long time to wait when your platform is already blocked next door.
Why India Matters for Polymarket
India has over 560 million internet users under 35. It is one of the most active crypto markets in the world by user count, even though volumes trail the U.S. and South Korea. Polymarket does not disclose geographic breakdowns of its users, but analytics firms estimated that Indian traffic accounted for 8% to 12% of total platform visits in Q1 2026.
Losing that audience is not existential, but it hurts. And it comes at the worst possible time. Polymarket is already facing regulatory pressure in the U.S., where sports prediction markets are facing insider trading scrutiny from Congress. The platform just got exploited for $700,000 through a UMA adapter vulnerability. And the House Oversight Committee launched a formal probe into insider trading on both Kalshi and Polymarket this week.
The Legal Argument India Is Making
India’s position is simple: betting on outcomes is gambling. It does not matter whether the underlying instrument is a sports match, an election, or a financial asset. If you put money in and the payout depends on an event you do not control, it is a wager. Indian law prohibits online wagering outside of a narrow set of state-licensed fantasy sports and horse racing platforms.
Polymarket’s counterargument, that prediction markets are tools for price discovery and information aggregation, does not hold up under Indian gambling statutes. The law does not distinguish between “smart” gambling and regular gambling. A bet is a bet.
What Happens Next
If Kalshi goes dark by Friday, India will have blocked the two largest prediction platforms in the world within a single week. Users will migrate to VPNs. Some already have. But MeitY’s VPN advisory suggests the government is prepared to escalate enforcement against circumvention tools as well.
The bigger question is whether other Asian regulators follow. South Korea has been reviewing its own prediction market rules. Japan’s Financial Services Agency has not approved any platform. The stories of retail traders turning $64,000 into $316,000 on political bets made great headlines. They also made regulators nervous. India just showed the rest of Asia how fast a government can move when it decides prediction markets are gambling, not innovation.
