Daily brief
Regulatory · South Korea · Fri 18 Sept · 3 min read
South Korea refers Polymarket users to prosecutors
What happened
South Korean police referred 18 Polymarket users to prosecutors as part of a gambling investigation. The probe covers 26 people in total and involves approximately $12.7 million in bets placed on the platform. This is the first known instance in the Asia-Pacific region of a prediction market platform's users facing formal criminal referral for their participation.
Polymarket operates as a decentralized prediction market. Users stake crypto on the outcome of real-world events. The platform has consistently described itself as an information market, not a gambling product. South Korean authorities are not accepting that framing. By routing this to prosecutors under gambling statutes, police have treated participation, not just operation, as the criminal act.
Why it matters
Sources: Cointelegraph
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