Portugal Bans Polymarket Over €4M Insider Trading Scandal
Portugal’s gaming regulator has banned crypto prediction platform Polymarket following suspicious buying and selling patterns in the course of the nation’s presidential election that noticed over €4 million wagered in simply two hours earlier than outcomes emerged.
The Portuguese Gaming Regulation and Inspection Service (SRIJ) ordered the platform to stop operations and face blocking after figuring out its actions violate nationwide legal guidelines prohibiting political betting.
The controversy facilities on suspicious shifts in betting odds that occurred exactly when exit polls started circulating privately, elevating severe questions on data leakage and insider buying and selling on prediction markets.
Portugal Takes Action Against @Polymarket: A Wake-Up Call for Crypto Prediction Markets?
According to Rádio Renascença, Portugal’s playing regulator SRIJ has ordered the blockchain-based prediction platform Polymarket to right away stop operations within the nation and… https://t.co/4dVlcPNCiG
— Tax man
(@cryptaxpt) January 20, 2026
Suspicious Betting Patterns Trigger Investigation
According to reports from Portuguese outlet Renascença, António José Seguro entered Sunday’s presidential election with 60% odds on Polymarket whereas challenger André Ventura held simply 30%.
By 6 PM, one full hour earlier than polls closed, Seguro’s likelihood had surged to 96%, reaching 100% when official projections confirmed his victory.
The timing proved much more suspicious in markets predicting the subsequent President of the Republic.
At 6:30 PM, Seguro’s probabilities of reaching Belém Palace rocketed from 68.6% to 93.2% inside a single hour.
During that very same interval, Cotrim de Figueiredo’s odds collapsed from 22% to merely 2.5%, settling at 95% for Seguro by 8 PM when Portuguese voters first realized the outcomes.
Between 6 PM and eight PM, the important window between Seguro’s odds surge and public outcome bulletins, over €5 million traded throughout numerous markets.
Total quantity in the primary presidential market exceeded $120 million (roughly €103 million), whereas various markets gathered practically $10 million (roughly €8.1 million).
The obvious thriller of how bettors accurately recognized the winner two hours earlier than official bulletins dissolves upon nearer examination.
Around 6 PM, preliminary exit ballot projections began circulating privately, all confirming a snug Seguro victory with over 30% of the vote.
The two candidates will face off in a runoff poll on February 8, although Polymarket gained’t be obtainable for Portuguese bettors this time.
Portugal Regulatory Crackdown and Compliance Measures
The SRIJ confirmed it turned conscious of Polymarket “very lately” and considers the corporate’s exercise “unlawful.”
According to Renascença, the regulator acknowledged that “the web site just isn’t approved to supply betting in Portugal, and beneath nationwide legislation, betting on political occasions or happenings, whether or not nationwide or worldwide, just isn’t permitted.”
Polymarket obtained notification on Friday to stop Portuguese operations inside 48 hours.
As of Monday, the location remained energetic, prompting SRIJ to inform community providers for platform blocking.
Portugal joins a rising listing of nations proscribing the platform.
Polymarket has been banned in Ukraine, Singapore, and France, whereas dealing with blocks in Australia, Belgium, Germany, the UK, Iran, and North Korea, amongst others.
— Cryptonews.com (@cryptonews) January 13, 2026
Notably, considerations over insider buying and selling on prediction markets have intensified following high-profile bets on geopolitical occasions, significantly after Polymarket practically perfectly predicted President Trump’s 2024 victory.
Austin Weiler, a researcher at blockchain intelligence agency Messari, argued that stopping insider buying and selling is “realistically attainable solely on prediction markets making use of Know Your Customer (KYC) measures.”
“For KYC’d platforms, the best mechanism is to limit entry upfront for customers to particular markets,” Weiler defined, including that state actors may very well be barred from political or geopolitical markets.
Kalshi Challenges Polymarket Dominance In Prediction Market
KYC necessities differ extensively throughout established prediction platforms.
Kalshi enforces identification verification as a part of its regulated mannequin beneath the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) authority, main regulated exchanges like Coinbase to develop prediction market web sites working via Kalshi’s federally permitted framework.
While Polymarket can also be legally recognized by the CFTC, entry and permitted markets differ considerably, with ongoing authorized questions on whether or not the platform options contract buying and selling or playing beneath one other identify.
Amid regulatory hurdles and Kalshi lawsuits, Polymarket’s December 2025 volume breakdown confirmed a 28% enhance in politics betting, with over $4.3 billion wagered in comparison with Kalshi’s $5.96 billion in the identical interval.
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