Argentina bans Polymarket after court decision on February inflation odds

Argentina is now part of a growing list of over 30 countries that have shut the door on Polymarket, as the prediction market platform faces heat on several fronts, from suspected data leaks to people placing money on whether world leaders will live or die.

A court in Buenos Aires told the national telecoms regulator, ENACOM, to get internet providers on board to carry out the block. Google and Apple got orders to take Polymarket’s app down for Argentine users.

It started when gambling bodies LOTBA and the Argentine Chamber of Casinos and Bingos lodged formal complaints. A dedicated gambling prosecutor’s office picked the case up from there.

Investigators found the platform was essentially running a betting operation while calling itself something else. On top of that, regulators pointed to payments made in crypto, deposits via credit card, and zero checks on age or identity, leaving the door open for underage users.

What made the ban stand out was the timing. Local media reported that Polymarket’s odds on Argentina’s February inflation figure, which came in at 2.9%, shifted noticeably just 15 minutes before the government published the data. That raised questions about whether someone had got to the numbers early.

Colombia pulled the plug on Polymarket last year. The Netherlands followed last month.

Back in the US, Kalshi and Polymarket have been doing big business, with over $44 billion changing hands between them in the past year. Nine out of ten bets on Kalshi are sports-related, but the range of markets goes well beyond that.

People have put $12 million on whether the US will confirm alien life before 2027, and $45 million on whether Jesus Christ returns this year.

Both platforms shot to prominence when they called Trump’s 2024 election win ahead of the polls. They are now said to be chasing investment that would value them together at $20 billion.

War death bets draw backlash and legal threats

Nothing has caused more trouble than the war markets. Bloomberg put Polymarket’s Iran-related betting at over $500 million. At one point, the platform was taking bets on a nuclear strike, a market it shut down once it started getting attention online, according to Cryptopolitan’s report.

Kalshi pulled a $54 million market over whether Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would be out of power by March 1, saying US-regulated platforms have no business running markets that “directly settle on someone’s death.”

Stew, 35, from Montana, had $10 riding on that Khamenei market. He got the idea one night after coming across reports of a surge in pizza orders near the Pentagon. He got his money back when Kalshi cancelled the market, but he wasn’t buying the company’s reasoning.

“They call it contract trading, which I guess technically speaking, that’s what it is. But if we’re all being honest here, it’s still betting,” he told BBC.

Craig Holman from Public Citizen didn’t mince words. “You have now opened up gambling on almost anything and it has turned into this very, very gruesome type of thing on the death of a head of state,” he said.

On Capitol Hill, Democrats have pushed a bill to bar government officials from trading event contracts. They pointed to one case where someone new to Polymarket walked away with close to half a million dollars after correctly betting on the arrest of Venezuela’s president, shortly before news broke publicly.

Bitcoin price bets pull in $60 million in a single day

Meanwhile, a simple five-minute Bitcoin bet on Polymarket pulled in over $60 million in one day, per Dune Analytics. Kalshi runs the same idea over 15-minute windows. There are no spreads or complicated odds, just a yes or a no, which suits people put off by how traditional sports betting works.

The CFTC dropped its proposed ban on sports and election contracts last month. The regulator’s Trump-picked chairman has backed the platforms, calling event contracts economically useful. But those pushing for tighter rules say the industry is hiding behind financial language to dodge the rules and taxes that betting companies normally have to deal with.

“Nobody is saying that gambling shouldn’t be allowed,” said Ben Schiffrin of Better Markets. “What the states are saying is things that are gambling should be regulated as gambling.”

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