South Korea Decides to Block Access to Polymarket, Citing Its Role as a Channel for Illegal Gambling

Odaily News – On August 18, the Korea Communications Standards Commission held a communications deliberation subcommittee meeting and determined that the prediction market platform Polymarket provides a channel for illegal gambling, deciding to impose access-blocking measures. The commission noted that Polymarket allows users to place bets on outcomes of political, electoral, and sports events, and that its winner-take-all payout structure encourages speculative behavior. Polymarket argued that it operates on the basis of non-custodial P2P trading and smart contracts, that it does not act as a host, and that it neither directly solicits funds nor issues sports promotion voting vouchers, thus not meeting the requirements for gambling. The commission responded that technical characteristics cannot be used as grounds to circumvent South Korean law, and that blocking access is unavoidable.