Polymarket Is Trying to Take Its U.S. Regulatory Model to Europe
Updated September 24, 2026
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Updated September 24, 2026
Polymarket is pushing for a major change in how prediction markets are treated in Europe.
The company has been meeting with regulators in the UK and European Union as it argues that prediction-market contracts should be treated as financial products rather than gambling, according to the Financial Times. Talks have reportedly included the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the UK’s financial regulator, the European Commission, and the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU’s financial-markets regulator.
It is essentially an attempt to take the regulatory approach Polymarket now uses in the United States and find a similar path across the Atlantic.
Polymarket’s U.S. operation runs through QCX, which now does business as Polymarket US and is registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as a designated contract market.
That puts Polymarket US inside the federal derivatives framework rather than operating simply as a gambling platform.
Polymarket now wants European regulators to look at prediction markets through a similar lens.
According to the Financial Times, the company has argued that prediction contracts resemble financial derivatives and could potentially fall under Europe’s Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), the framework governing investment services and financial instruments across the EU. Polymarket has also joined industry group Blockchain for Europe as it increases its lobbying efforts.
There is one fairly big problem with that approach.
Being classified as a financial product does not necessarily mean prediction markets suddenly become available to European retail customers.
ESMA addressed the growing popularity of prediction markets directly in July.
The regulator said an event contract can qualify as a financial instrument depending on the question it is based on. When it does, the binary yes-or-no payout means it can fall under existing European restrictions on binary options.
Those measures prohibit the marketing, distribution or sale of covered binary options to retail customers.
In other words, Polymarket could convince regulators that some prediction markets are financial products and still find itself facing rules that prevent those products from being offered to ordinary consumers.
There is another complication. ESMA says event contracts can also qualify as bets under national gambling laws. That means the regulatory answer can depend on both what the market is about and where the customer is located.
The situation is similarly complicated in Britain.
The FCA says prediction markets tied to non-financial events, including sports and political outcomes, fall under the remit of the Gambling Commission.
Prediction markets involving financial or certain climate-related events can instead fall within the FCA’s jurisdiction.
But there is another catch: the FCA currently considers the financial prediction-market products it has reviewed to be binary options, which remain banned from sale to UK retail customers.
So Polymarket is not simply asking European regulators to decide whether prediction markets are gambling or finance.
It is trying to find a workable place for a relatively new product inside regulatory systems that already have rules covering both categories.
It's a natural expansion, and the push makes sense from Polymarket’s perspective.
Prediction markets have expanded rapidly in the United States, and Polymarket now has its own CFTC-regulated U.S. exchange. Europe represents another enormous potential audience if the company can establish a legal route for retail customers.
The expansion push also comes as prediction markets are becoming more visible in mainstream finance, media and everyday sports conversations. We have already seen that with the way prediction markets are becoming part of the news and with newer features such as Polymarket Squads, which adds private group chats and shared trading directly inside the app.
But the Financial Times reports that regulators have so far been resistant to Polymarket’s preferred interpretation, particularly when it comes to sports and political markets.
That makes this a regulatory campaign rather than a confirmed European expansion.
There is no new EU-wide framework opening Polymarket-style prediction markets to retail customers, and neither ESMA nor the FCA has adopted Polymarket’s proposed approach.
For now, Polymarket is trying to convince European regulators that prediction markets deserve a different place in the rulebook.
Whether Europe agrees is a much bigger question.
