Polymarket, the world’s largest decentralized gambling platform, has shut down for Indian users. The website says: “The website cannot be accessed. Please check polymarket.com for spelling errors.”
Refreshing the page does not resolve the connection issue.
The outage follows a warning issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on April 25 against VPN service providers. The advisory warns that local users continue to access “illegal and blocked prediction markets and online gambling platforms” despite “domestic bans”.
Under the directive, Internet service providers were required to terminate access to prediction markets, with Polymarket being one of the main targets.
While Kalshi, a platform regulated by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), remains accessible for now, it may soon face a similar fate. Local media reports quoted anonymous sources within MeitY as saying the agency “has issued a blocking order to Polymarket and is in the process of issuing a blocking order to Kalshi as soon as Friday”.
Prediction markets enable users to place bets on the outcome of binary events, such as referendums, financial asset price movements and election results. The platforms have seen a surge in popularity around the world during the 2024 U.S. presidential election, becoming a prime venue for investors to hedge or bet on the political outcome.
However, the Indian government classifies activities on these platforms as online money games. Therefore, they fall under the category of outright prohibition under the Online Gaming Promotion and Regulation Act, 2025.
The Indian government has always maintained a “risk-averse” and prohibitive stance on the cryptocurrency industry, prioritizing financial stability and capital controls over industry growth. New Delhi has adopted a “shadow ban” strategy through punitive taxes, including a 30% flat income tax and a 1% tax deducted at source (TDS) on all transactions, which have effectively suppressed domestic transaction volumes.
The Treasury is committed to strict anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CFT) regulation of the industry through the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU). This regulatory environment has prompted many local cryptocurrency startups to relocate to friendlier jurisdictions such as Dubai or Singapore, as the government and the Reserve Bank of India continue to say that it considers private cryptocurrencies to be more of a speculative “money play” than legitimate financial innovation.
The Indian Parliament’s Standing Committee on Finance met with cryptocurrency exchanges Binance, WazirX and Zebpay in Delhi on May 20 to discuss regulatory and tax issues in the virtual digital asset (VDA) industry.
The committee expressed concern over the large flow of funds out of the country through cryptocurrency channels.
