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Polymarket is moving into Europe with a clear pitch to regulators. The company wants to be seen as a financial services group rather than a gambling operator, a shift it believes will open the door to international growth.
Meetings have already taken place in London, Brussels and other EU capitals, with the New York‑based platform arguing that its activities should fall under financial services law instead of scattered local gambling rules, according to FT.
The prediction market operator has faced lots of pushback in Europe and remains off-limits for retail investors. While access is possible through VPNs, formal approval the service cannot grow openly.
To change that, Polymarket has begun direct talks with the European Securities and Markets Authority and the European Commission. People familiar with the effort also say the company has met regulators in individual member states, aiming to secure a licence that would allow it to operate legally across Europe.
Progress being made but still a long way to go
Polymarket has been raising funds at a valuation above $20bn while trying to convince European regulators that its contracts should be treated under Mifid rules for financial services rather than gambling laws applied country by country.
The company argues its products resemble derivatives more than bets, an approach that has already found some success in the United States. There, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission oversees prediction markets as financial derivatives, though its position has sparked disputes with individual states that want to apply gambling rules instead.
Esma chair Verena Ross met two US‑based members of Polymarket’s legal team in June, joined by a Paris lawyer from A&O Shearman and a Brussels lobbyist from Hanbury Strategy.
The following day, Polymarket executives sat down with FCA chief executive Nikhil Rathi. The company later said, “As we grow our presence and expand globally, we are committed to engaging early and openly with policymakers and regulators.” As part of its push, Polymarket has joined Blockchain For Europe and begun talks with other industry groups.
The FCA has recently signaled it may review rules on retail investor access to prediction markets, though it maintains that its ban on binary options is “appropriate given the speculative, gambling‑like nature of these contracts and the high risk of consumer harm.”
The UK regulator has also drawn a line between markets on financial or climatic events, which fall under its remit, and those on politics or sports, which are left to the Gambling Commission. Regulators in France, Germany and Italy have taken similar positions, insisting prediction markets need local gambling licences.
Esma, meanwhile, has shown little appetite for loosening EU rules. This month it warned that prediction markets were “rife with insider trading.”
