Polymarket has gone to court in The Hague to contest a Dutch ban and a €420,000 enforcement penalty, the company confirmed to the Financieele Dagblad earlier this month. It argues that event-based contracts are financial derivatives that should be supervised by the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM), while the Kansspelautoriteit (Ksa) treats them as illegal games of chance. The outcome may clarify how prediction markets are handled in the Netherlands and beyond, according to DutchNews.nl and Yahoo Finance.
Penalty timeline
In an order dated 20 January 2026 and made public on 17 February, the Ksa told Polymarket to stop serving Dutch customers. The authority said the platform had supplied games of chance without a Dutch licence, and it set a possible penalty of €420,000 per week, up to a ceiling of €840,000.
Polymarket did restrict Dutch accounts later in February, but the Ksa judged that it had acted too late. The regulator then sought €420,000 from Adventure One QSS Inc., which operates Polymarket. Its administrative objection was rejected in June, and the Ksa said in July that the order had been breached, prompting collection of the fine.
Derivative or bet?
Polymarket maintains that users purchase contracts whose value depends on whether a real-world event occurs, with payouts made in USDC, a dollar-linked crypto asset. The company says this structure is similar to futures and therefore falls within the remit of the Dutch financial markets regulator, the AFM.
The Ksa characterises the activity differently. It contends that people are risking money on outcomes that are not known in advance, which amounts to gambling under Dutch rules. Ksa director Ella Seijsener said in February: “Prediction markets are on the rise, in the Netherlands too. These types of companies offer bets which are not allowed on our market under any circumstances, not even by licence holders.” The authority also points out that Dutch law allows betting only on sport, meaning a licence would not have been possible for Polymarket even if one had been sought.
Legal and financial criticism
Some commentators cited by the Financieele Dagblad argue that Polymarket’s yes-or-no contracts look more like binary options, where a fixed payout follows if an event happens and the stake is lost if it does not. Those products already face strict retail restrictions in much of Europe.
Gambling lawyer Micha Schimmel told the same newspaper that the case has little chance. He referred to a 2015 judgment holding that a service can be a financial product and still count as gambling.
Election markets and political mood
Polymarket attracted Dutch attention when users put millions of dollars on the October 2025 general election. More than $30m was traded in election-linked contracts, according to NL Times, including markets on whether parties would gain or lose seats, Yahoo Finance reported. The Financieele Dagblad wrote in May that many Dutch users moved to rival platforms after the block.
In parliament, a motion from the far-right Forum for Democracy asking the government to consider regulating prediction markets separately within gambling law was rejected by MPs last week.
Broader outlook and platform changes
If the court sides with Polymarket, the decision could alter how other European regulators supervise prediction markets. For now the platform still faces bans in France and Germany, DutchNews.nl noted.
Separate from the litigation, Polymarket recently introduced voluntary self-exclusion options lasting 30 days, one year or permanently, aimed at reducing addictive trading. Users in the United States have the option of daily, weekly or monthly caps on deposits. The company has hired Lisa Mantil, a former Goldman Sachs banker, as head of institutional growth.
