South Korea Blocks Polymarket, Becomes Fourth Country After France, Germany, Australia

South Korea’s Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC) voted on August 18, 2026 to block domestic access to Polymarket, the world’s largest decentralized prediction market. The ruling classifies the platform as an illegal gambling operator under the country’s Criminal Act, adding South Korea to a growing list of jurisdictions — France, Australia and Germany — that have already cut off access on similar grounds.

The decision, delivered by the same body described in some reports as the Korea Media and Communications Commission, caps a multi-month regulatory standoff between Seoul and the platform. Regulators found that Polymarket’s activities also fall under the National Sports Promotion Act’s ban on analogous betting operations, not just the Criminal Act’s gambling provisions.

Why regulators called it gambling

The commission’s core objection centers on Polymarket’s winner-takes-all payout structure across markets covering politics, sports and weather outcomes. It said this design encourages speculative gambling behavior among users, regardless of the underlying blockchain mechanics.

Regulators also pointed to Polymarket’s operational role: setting the rules for each market, running crypto deposit, withdrawal and settlement systems, and collecting transaction fees on trades. In the KCSC’s view, this level of platform control amounts to running a gambling venue, not merely hosting a decentralized information exchange.

Polymarket’s defense rejected

In its statement to the commission, Polymarket argued it had already removed Korean-language services, does not support payments in Korean won, and operates through noncustodial transactions and smart contracts rather than directly holding user funds.

The KCSC rejected that framing outright. It said technical characteristics such as decentralization, the trading interface and the underlying order book do not exempt a platform from South Korean law if its economic effect is functionally identical to gambling.

Part of a wider regulatory squeeze

South Korea’s action follows similar blocks already imposed by France, Australia and Germany, meaning Polymarket now faces access restrictions in at least four major markets on gambling-related grounds. Cointelegraph also reported that JPMorgan had separately cut banking ties with Polymarket over regulatory concerns, underscoring how traditional finance counterparties are increasingly wary of the platform’s legal exposure even as its trading volumes have made it the dominant name in on-chain prediction markets.

For crypto users, the ruling is another signal that regulators are willing to look past noncustodial architecture and smart-contract execution when assessing gambling risk — treating the economic substance of a product, not its technical wrapper, as the deciding factor. Traders and builders operating prediction-market products elsewhere should expect similar scrutiny as jurisdictions test how existing gambling statutes apply to blockchain-based betting markets.

Read more: Trump to Meet Crypto, Prediction Market CEOs as SEC Freezes Fundraising Vote, BTC at $63.5K

Sources

• coingape.com
• cointelegraph.com