South Korea's KCSC orders ISP block on Polymarket over gambling claims
South Korea's Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC) has ordered domestic internet service providers to block access to Polymarket, concluding that its prediction markets constitute illegal gambling under the country's Criminal Act and Sports Promotion Law. The regulator cited the platform's smart-contract mechanics and winner-take-all contract design in its determination. Polymarket stated it had already removed Korean users from the platform. The block was announced on August 18, 2026, with no disclosed implementation timeline.
Every new jurisdiction that treats CFTC-regulated event contracts as gambling narrows Polymarket's addressable market and complicates its global compliance narrative. The KCSC's specific reasoning matters: by pointing to smart-contract mechanics and winner-take-all structures rather than marketing language, the commission signals that platform architecture itself is under scrutiny, not just promotional wording. That raises engineering costs for any venue with similar contract designs, including Polymarket's domestic rivals.
Traders in affected jurisdictions face sudden position freezes without withdrawal guarantees, while the platform's federal US status offers no shield abroad. Polymarket's claim that it had already excluded Korean users suggests the block may be partly preemptive, but the regulator's formal classification still scars the platform's regulatory track record. Each such ruling emboldens copycat actions elsewhere, and the absence of an implementation timeline leaves Korean users in limbo and Polymarket unable to plan.