Brazil fully bans 27 prediction market platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi: the largest prediction market ban in emerging markets

The Brazilian government announced a full ban on 27 prediction market platforms, including Polymarket and Kalshi, on 4/24. At a press conference in Brasília, Finance Minister Dario Durigan said these platforms do not comply with Brazil’s federal gambling regulations and have not obtained regulatory approval to operate as derivatives trading. According to a Bloomberg report, starting Friday afternoon, Brazilian users trying to access Polymarket and Kalshi began seeing access-blocked signals. This is the largest single prediction-market shutdown action to date in emerging markets.

Scope and legal basis of the ban

Item Content Affected platforms 27 (different sources say 28), including major overseas prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi Prohibited contract categories Event-result-based contracts such as elections, sports, politics, culture, etc. Main legal source Brazil’s current gambling law only allows “fixed-odds betting based on in-person sports events”; event-based prediction markets are not within the legal scope Regulation authority Investor protection, gambling addiction prevention, and protecting citizens’ savings; Brazil’s central bank also said these platforms do not meet compliance requirements for derivatives trading Effective Starting Friday afternoon on April 24, 2026, access will be blocked

Brazil’s regulatory logic

In January 2025, Brazil officially launched an online gambling legalization framework, but that framework only covers “fixed-odds betting based on the results of in-person events.” Event-type prediction contracts (such as election results, geopolitical events, and cultural events) remain illegal under current regulations. At the press conference, Durigan emphasized that these platforms “have neither obtained licenses nor are they protected by law in Brazil,” and the access-restriction policy aligns with the government’s direction of reducing public debt and protecting citizens’ savings.

The Brazilian central bank also added from the perspective of derivatives trading: these platforms have not met the regulatory thresholds for derivatives markets, posing risks to investor protection and market integrity.

Pressure to expand global prediction markets

This ban, together with another incident earlier this week in which a U.S. military officer was indicted for placing $400k in bets on Polymarket using confidential information, pushed the narrative of “global expansion of prediction markets” to a turning point. For operators such as Polymarket and Kalshi, in recent weeks they had just rolled out, within the United States, ETF filing requests for retirement accounts (401(k), IRA) and institutional partnership deals. At the same time, being fully banned nationwide in Brazil is the first clearly negative case in emerging markets.

Observations for other emerging markets: jurisdictions such as India, Indonesia, and Turkey—also characterized by “online gambling being open but requiring a specific compliance framework”—may follow Brazil’s review approach. For Polymarket and Kalshi, this means that in the future, each time they expand into an overseas market, they will need to complete compliance alignment with local financial-market and gambling regulators; they cannot rely on only VPNs or borderless operations.

What to watch next

Whether Polymarket and Kalshi will negotiate with Brazil’s regulators using “specific contract categories”

Whether the EU, Singapore, and Japan’s regulatory characterization of event contracts will follow Brazil’s model

Whether the U.S. SEC’s scrutiny of prediction market ETF applications from Bitwise, Roundhill, and GraniteShares will intensify due to international regulatory moves

Whether local Brazilian users will maintain access via VPN, and whether Brazil’s central bank will further punish the funds flowing through VPNs used to evade access restrictions

This article Brazil fully bans prediction-market platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi— the largest-scale prediction market ban in emerging markets— first appears on Lian News ABMedia.