Polymarket Takes MiFID Case to EU and UK Regulators
Polymarket has started making its financial-product case directly to European regulators. The talks come while national gambling authorities are still blocking the platform in parts of Europe.
The prediction market has held discussions with the European Commission and ESMA over how its contracts should be regulated, Engadget reported, citing the Financial Times. Its representatives have also met FCA chief executive Nikhil Rathi in the UK.
Polymarket wants event contracts treated as financial products under the MiFID framework rather than handled through gambling rules country by country. The company has also joined Blockchain For Europe as it steps up its work around EU regulation.
The Product Mix Is Not Mostly Financial
There is a complication in Polymarket’s own numbers. ESMA looked at platform API data in its September Risk Monitor. For Polymarket, politics was the largest identified category at 29%. Sports accounted for another 19%, followed by crypto at 15%. The Polymarket breakdown was based on data available through January 31, 2026.
15M’s calculation puts politics and sports together at 48%. That 48% is not a measure of European traffic, and it does not decide how individual contracts would be classified. It is simply the sum of the two categories in ESMA’s dataset.
The UK already treats those subjects differently from financial prediction products. The FCA says contracts tied to sporting or political outcomes fall under the Gambling Commission. Prediction products based on financial events, and some climate events, can sit inside the FCA perimeter instead. The regulator currently regards the financial products it has seen as binary options, whose sale to retail customers is banned in the UK.
So a financial-services route would not give every Polymarket market the same regulatory status.
Lithuania Blocked Polymarket This Month
National gambling enforcement has continued while those discussions take place. Lithuania’s Gambling Supervisory Authority blocked Polymarket on September 8 after finding features of betting on the site. The regulator also ordered payment providers to stop transactions involving Adventure One QSS.
It was the first prediction-market website added to Lithuania’s illegal gambling list. The authority said Polymarket was operating without the licence and permission required for gambling there.
Other European jurisdictions have also restricted the platform, while Polymarket is now arguing for a different regulatory route at EU level.