Polymarket

Polymarket is an American cryptocurrency-based prediction market which offers a platform where individuals can place bets on future outcomes, including sports matches, economic indicators, weather patterns, awards, political and legislative outcomes, and military conflicts. Participants can deposit cryptocurrency through the Polygon blockchain network and trade shares that represent the likelihood of specific future outcomes. The company is headquartered in Manhattan, New York City, where the platform was launched in 2020, and has legal domicile in Panama. The platform has been described as operating in "a legal and ethical grey area" because of the controversial nature of the betting markets offered by the company, including markets related to military strikes and ongoing wars. The majority of trades on the platform are related to sports. While it is not labelled a sports betting platform, 63% of trades on the platform are for sports bets. Instances of insider trading and attempts to manipulate outcomes have been observed on the platform. Polymarket has been banned by the governments of France, Brazil, Italy and Gibraltar. It was not able to operate in the United States from 2022 until 2025, when the second Donald Trump administration eased the regulatory environment and Donald Trump Jr. joined the company as an advisor.…

Polymarket is an American cryptocurrency-based prediction market which offers a platform where individuals can place bets on future outcomes, including sports matches, economic indicators, weather patterns, awards, political and legislative outcomes, and military conflicts. Participants can deposit cryptocurrency through the Polygon blockchain network and trade shares that represent the likelihood of specific future outcomes. The company is headquartered in Manhattan, New York City, where the platform was launched in 2020, and has legal domicile in Panama. The platform has been described as operating in "a legal and ethical grey area" because of the controversial nature of the betting markets offered by the company, including markets related to military strikes and ongoing wars. The majority of trades on the platform are related to sports. While it is not labelled a sports betting platform, 63% of trades on the platform are for sports bets. Instances of insider trading and attempts to manipulate outcomes have been observed on the platform. Polymarket has been banned by the governments of France, Brazil, Italy and Gibraltar. It was not able to operate in the United States from 2022 until 2025, when the second Donald Trump administration eased the regulatory environment and Donald Trump Jr. joined the company as an advisor. Scholars have challenged whether the platform efficiently and accurately aggregates information about outcomes. The company advertises that its markets "reflect real-time sentiment"; however, scholars have challenged the way the platform aggregates information about outcomes. A review by the New York Times of Polymarket's social media posts found that the platform has published hundreds of false and misleading posts. Politico uncovered a campaign by Polymarket to pay influencers to praise Polymarket for its supposed accuracy; The Wall Street Journal reported that Polymarket paid content creators to show simulated trades with fake wins on clones of Polymarket's website, as well as paying to promote user-generated content explaining how to use insider information on Polymarket. A growing number of gamblers are increasingly using unregulated platforms, such as Polymarket, due to regulated bookmakers using regulation as an excuse to void bets and withhold payment. ==Legal and regulatory issues== Polymarket has faced legal issues and has been blocked in several countries. As of September 2024, Polymarket operates its election prediction operations offshore, as domestic operations would be regulated in the U.S. by the CFTC. The betting markets offered by the company, as well as the ability of individuals with insider information to bet on outcomes, have been described as a "legal and ethical grey area." The ability of individuals with insider information to bet on outcomes, has been described as a legal grey area by U.S. representative Ritchie Torres. Various instances of suspicious insider trading have been observed on Polymarket, as well as attempts by gamblers to manipulate outcomes and pressure journalists to change reporting. Suspicious activities, suggestive of insider information being used for Polymarket betting, have been observed in the Russo-Ukrainian war, the 2026 United States strikes in Venezuela, Israeli military operations, the 2026 Israeli–United States strikes on Iran, and OpenAI. 0.1% of accounts net 67% of the profits on Polymarket, while more than 70% of users are losing money. An estimated 3% of traders account for the majority of price discovery on the platform. Polymarket has a track record of changing the terms of wagers, even after bets have been made. On November 13, 2024, the FBI raided Polymarket founder and CEO Shayne Coplan's home and seized his phone. According to Bloomberg News, the Department of Justice was investigating Polymarket for allegedly allowing U.S.-based users to make bets on the website. Having legal domicile in Panama, the company enjoys the benefits of Panamanian law, such as protection against foreign court orders due to Panamanian law, which prohibits rulings based on cases in other countries unless authorized by the supreme court, and zero tax on foreign income. Panamanian law used to require no business operations in the country to benefit from this, however a law was introduced to require companies to have strategic business operations in the country to avoid a new 15% tax penalty on foreign income. In June 2026, US Senators John Curtis (R-Utah) and Adam Schiff (D-California) formally requested the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to review Polymarket’s marketing practices. This followed a Wall Street Journal investigation into misleading advertising.

Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1378743164 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.