Romania Bans Polymarket After Election-Linked $600M Trading Surge
Expertise: US Gaming, European Gaming Industry, iGaming
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The National Office for Gambling (ONJN) moved to prohibit the blockchain-based prediction and event-trading platform Polymarket from operating in Romania after detecting what it described as an “explosive increase” in trading around national elections held in May. The regulator says the platform recorded some $600 million in transaction volume tied to the presidential contest, and a further $15 million linked to municipal votes in Bucharest.
ONJN said those figures represent aggregate trades among participants rather than individual wagers, but argued the scale is proof of significant unregulated betting activity occurring outside the state-controlled betting framework. Under Romanian law, the office concluded, Polymarket effectively functions as a counterparty betting operator because it permits users to place monetary stakes on future outcomes and collects fees from those transactions – without holding a domestic gambling licence.
“It would be a reckless precedent to allow counterparty betting to be recast as trading”, ONJN said in its public notice, warning that the platform’s operations circumvent consumer protections, anti-money-laundering safeguards and tax supervision while infringing Romania’s statutory monopoly over certain gambling services. The regulator pointed to Government Emergency Ordinance 77/2009, under which participation in or promotion of unlicensed gambling can be treated as a misdemeanor and attract financial penalties.
Regulatory Response Across Europe
Romania becomes the latest European authority to take formal action against Polymarket. Regulators in France, Poland and Belgium have previously restricted the platform: France’s Autorité Nationale des Jeux initiated measures after an investigation into a large prediction placed on a US election, while Poland added the site to its register of illegal gambling domains and Belgium ordered internet service providers to block access. Outside Europe, Colombia has also issued a prohibition, and US authorities, including the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, have taken enforcement steps against the platform in recent years.
In some jurisdictions Polymarket has sought technical fixes such as geoblocking to limit access to residents of regulated markets. Regulators say those mitigations are insufficient when a service continues to enable locally situated users to place monetary positions that resemble bets and when the operator does not submit to local licensing and supervision.
ONJN Ban Raises Compliance Questions
RELATED TOPICS: Regulation
