India Blocks Polymarket and Lines Up Kalshi as Next Target

Polymarket, the world's largest decentralised prediction market, has gone dark for users in India. The site now returns a "this site can't be reached" error, and refreshing does not resolve it. The outage follows a formal government blocking order, and US-regulated rival Kalshi appears to be next in line.

India Is Using Section 69A to Force the Block

The block was issued under Section 69A of India's Information Technology Act, which empowers the central government to restrict access to online content. A MeitY official told local outlet ThePrint that the ministry had "already issued a blocking order to Polymarket and are in the process of issuing an order to Kalshi as soon as Friday."

The enforcement follows an April advisory that directed VPN providers and internet service providers to cut access to what the ministry called "illegal and blocked prediction market and online betting platforms." That advisory did not work. Both platforms continued allowing Indian users to sign up and trade through mirror sites, which are exact copies of a website hosted on separate servers under different URLs specifically to bypass blocking orders. The formal Section 69A order is the government's escalation after the softer advisory failed.

Prediction Markets Fall Under a Total Gaming Ban

The legal basis is the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, known as PROGA, which both houses of Parliament passed in August 2025 and which took full effect on 1 May 2026. The law draws a three-way distinction: e-sports are treated as legitimate skill-based competition, social games are permitted as non-monetary, and online money games are completely prohibited.

That prohibition is sweeping. It bans not just the operation of online money games but also their advertising and any associated financial transactions, with banks and financial institutions barred from processing payments to such platforms. Indian authorities classify prediction markets squarely within the online money games category, which leaves Polymarket and Kalshi with no legal path to operate domestically. The same law has already banned previously protected "skill games" including fantasy cricket platform Dream11 and poker operator Adda52.

Cricket Made India Too Big to Ignore

The crackdown matters because India represents one of the largest untapped liquidity pools in prediction markets, driven almost entirely by cricket. A single 7 May Indian Premier League match between Lucknow Super Giants and Royal Challengers Bengaluru drew $27.7 million in trading across Kalshi and Polymarket. Kalshi markets tied to IPL and Women's Premier League games have approached half the trading volume of US baseball markets in some weeks.

That liquidity is exactly why the platforms kept serving Indian users despite the ban, and why the enforcement is significant. India's stance fits a consistently restrictive posture toward crypto more broadly. New Delhi already applies a 30% flat tax on crypto gains and a 1% tax deducted at source on transactions, a regime that has throttled domestic trading and pushed startups toward Dubai and Singapore.

The practical challenge is enforcement. One MeitY official has described the situation as a "whack-a-mole" problem, with banned platforms resurfacing through mirror sites, alternate domains and VPN access faster than the government can block them. The Section 69A orders raise the legal stakes, but whether they actually stop determined Indian traders from reaching Polymarket and Kalshi is a separate question entirely.