Are Prediction Markets Legal in the Netherlands? (2026)
The Short Answer
Most real-money prediction markets are not legally offerable in the Netherlands in 2026. The Dutch remote-gambling regime permits licensed casino games, sports-event betting and horse-racing bets, but excludes non-sports event betting such as elections and other general real-world events. In June 2026, the Kansspelautoriteit upheld enforcement against Polymarket for offering unlicensed games of chance to the Dutch market. Polymarket now fully blocks the Netherlands. A sports prediction contract can potentially be lawful only when it is offered by an appropriately licensed Dutch operator and fits the permitted sports-betting category. Predictefy can be used to research market data, but data access is not permission to trade.
Ask whether prediction markets are legal in the Netherlands and the answer depends on both the event and the operator.
The Netherlands does allow regulated online gambling. Since October 2021, operators have been able to obtain a remote-gambling licence from the Kansspelautoriteit, usually abbreviated to the Ksa.
But that licence does not create a general right to offer markets on elections, inflation, crypto prices, political appointments, weather or any other real-world event.
Dutch regulation limits which forms of remote gambling can be licensed. In 2026, the Ksa also applied those rules directly to Polymarket and rejected the argument that a blockchain-based prediction exchange falls outside gambling law merely because users trade positions against one another.
Predictefy can make the research side easier by normalizing prices, probabilities, liquidity, order books and matched markets across multiple venues. It does not issue Dutch gambling licences or determine whether a user may legally enter the underlying contract.
Key Takeaways
- The Netherlands does not have a separate prediction-market licence.
- Dutch remote-gambling licences cover casino games, sports-event betting and horse racing—not general non-sports event betting.
- Election, political, economic, crypto, culture and similar Polymarket-style event markets are generally outside the permitted Dutch remote-betting categories.
- The Ksa upheld enforcement against Polymarket in June 2026 and reported a forfeited penalty of €420,000.
- Polymarket currently lists the Netherlands as fully blocked and prohibits VPN circumvention.
- Kalshi’s US regulation and international onboarding do not replace the need for Dutch legal permission.
- Viewing prediction-market data through Predictefy is different from placing a real-money trade on the underlying venue.
How Dutch Law Classifies Prediction Markets
The starting point is the Dutch Wet op de kansspelen, or Games of Chance Act.
At a high level, the Act prohibits offering people an opportunity to compete for prizes where winners are determined by a factor of chance over which participants generally cannot exercise a predominant influence, unless the required licence has been granted.
The law also defines a remote game of chance as one offered through electronic communication without physical contact between the participant and the provider.
The key restriction appears in the Remote Gambling Decree. A Dutch remote-gambling licence can be granted only for:
- casino games against the licence holder
- casino games in which players compete against one another
- bets on events during a sporting competition or on its result
- bets on horse-racing results
That list matters because it is not an open-ended permission for every type of event contract.
| Prediction-Market Category | 2026 Dutch Position | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Football match, league winner or other sports result | Potentially licensable | Sports-event betting is a permitted remote-gambling category, but the operator still needs the appropriate Ksa licence. |
| Horse-racing result | Potentially licensable | Horse racing is expressly included as a permitted betting category. |
| Election winner or next president | Not permitted as remote event betting | The Ksa identifies non-sports event betting as excluded, even for a remote-gambling licence holder. |
| Crypto price, inflation, central-bank decision or economic release | Generally falls within excluded non-sports event betting under the Ksa’s reasoning | The outcome is a real-world event rather than an approved sports or horse-racing wager. |
| Political appointment, celebrity event, culture or entertainment result | Not a permitted remote-betting category | The Ksa expressly says the Netherlands does not permit general betting on elections, song contests and comparable events. |
| Play-money forecasting with no financial stake or prize | Materially different | Without money, money’s worth or a prize, the product may fall outside the ordinary games-of-chance definition; the exact structure still matters. |
The Kansspelautoriteit’s public betting guidance is direct: in the Netherlands, betting through a licensed provider is limited to sports results and horse racing. It gives elections, the Eurovision Song Contest and royal-family events as examples of bets that are not allowed.
A prediction-market interface does not avoid these rules merely because it resembles an exchange.
In its Polymarket decision, the Ksa considered arguments that users rely on information, analysis, timing and active trading; that the platform does not act as a traditional house; and that settlement occurs through blockchain infrastructure and an external oracle.
The regulator rejected those arguments.
It said prediction markets are still opportunities to wager on uncertain future events and that a provider can “give the opportunity” to participate even when it only facilitates trades between users.
Polymarket and Kalshi in the Netherlands
Polymarket has already been the subject of direct Dutch enforcement.
On 20 January 2026, the Ksa imposed an order subject to periodic penalty payments on Adventure One QSS Inc., the company identified by the regulator as offering Polymarket to the Dutch market.
In its 23 June 2026 objection decision, the Ksa upheld the enforcement position. On 8 July, it announced that Polymarket had continued violating the order and that a €420,000 penalty had been forfeited and would be collected.
The official case page is available through the Kansspelautoriteit’s Polymarket decision record.
Important Legal Status
The Ksa decision is a current administrative enforcement decision, not necessarily the final word of a Dutch court. The regulator’s public case page stated that an appeal could still be filed with the district court. Nevertheless, it is the clearest current statement of how the Dutch gambling regulator classifies Polymarket-style prediction markets.
The decision reaches two separate conclusions.
First, Polymarket was offering games of chance to Dutch users without the required licence.
Second, many Polymarket markets could not have been offered under an ordinary Dutch remote-gambling licence anyway because they involved non-sports event betting.
The Ksa specifically referred to bets on a country’s next president and a footballer’s transfer between clubs as prohibited event betting. The latter example is useful: an event can involve sport without being a permitted bet on a sporting competition or its result.
Polymarket’s own current geographic-restrictions page now lists the Netherlands among its fully blocked countries. It also prohibits VPNs and similar tools used to bypass geographic restrictions.
Kalshi presents a different platform-policy question but the same Dutch-law problem.
Kalshi says it accepts users from many countries, subject to its Member Agreement, identity verification and geographic restrictions. It also tells international users that they are responsible for ensuring their access and use are lawful in their jurisdiction.
Kalshi is regulated in the United States by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as a Designated Contract Market. That status governs its US operation; it does not itself authorise the platform to offer every event contract in the Netherlands.
We did not locate an official Ksa decision specifically naming Kalshi. We also found no official Dutch source identifying Kalshi as a licensed Dutch gambling provider.
The authoritative place to verify a Dutch licence is the Ksa’s Kansspelwijzer.
| Question | Polymarket | Kalshi |
|---|---|---|
| Does the platform have US or foreign regulatory status? | Operates under its own international compliance structure | US CFTC-regulated Designated Contract Market |
| Does that create Dutch permission? | No | No |
| Has the Ksa specifically acted against it? | Yes, with an order and €420,000 forfeited penalty reported in 2026 | No platform-specific Ksa decision was located during this review |
| Current platform-access position | The Netherlands is fully blocked | International access depends on the Member Agreement and local law |
| Can platform availability prove legality? | No | No |
Research Markets Without Checking Every Venue Separately
Predictefy provides one normalized layer for prediction-market prices, probabilities, liquidity, order books and matched markets across supported venues. Use the Predictefy developer platform for research and market comparison. The presence of a venue in a data feed does not mean that Dutch users are permitted to trade on it.
What Prediction-Market Activity Can Be Legal?
The Netherlands has not prohibited every product that might be described informally as a prediction market.
The legal outcome depends on the underlying structure.
Licensed sports betting can be legal.
A binary contract on the result of a football match, tournament or sporting competition may fit the permitted sports-betting category. An exchange-like format or peer-to-peer structure does not automatically prevent licensing.
However, the provider must hold the correct Ksa licence, and the wager must comply with Dutch rules governing sports betting, player protection, payments, advertising and market integrity.
A sports market offered by an unlicensed offshore platform remains unlicensed simply because the event itself is a sport.
General non-sports event markets are excluded.
The Ksa’s Polymarket decision states that non-sports event betting cannot be offered remotely in the Netherlands even by a holder of a remote-gambling licence.
That includes the standard Polymarket or Kalshi categories covering:
- elections and political appointments
- economic releases and central-bank decisions
- crypto-price thresholds
- technology launches
- weather outcomes
- entertainment, culture and celebrity events
This list applies the Ksa’s stated distinction between sports betting and excluded event betting. A differently structured instrument could require separate financial-regulatory analysis, but calling a conventional YES/NO event position a derivative does not by itself remove the gambling issue.
Non-financial forecasting is different.
An internal forecasting tool that uses reputation points, surveys or probabilities without requiring participants to risk money or awarding prizes has a materially different structure.
A research platform can also display market probabilities without itself accepting wagers.
| Activity | What Is Happening | Likely Regulatory Significance |
|---|---|---|
| Viewing a probability | Consuming public market data | Different from participating in the underlying wager |
| Comparing prices through Predictefy | Researching normalized data across venues | Does not itself create permission to trade |
| Internal play-money forecasting | No participant stake or cash prize | May fall outside ordinary gambling rules, depending on the exact design |
| Buying a YES or NO event contract | Putting money at risk on an uncertain outcome | Engages the underlying Dutch gambling or financial-regulatory analysis |
| Routing a Dutch user to an unlicensed venue | Facilitating or promoting participation | Can create issues beyond neutral market-data publication |
Operators, Affiliates, Users and Crypto
The clearest enforcement exposure sits with operators.
An operator offering online games of chance to Dutch users needs a Ksa licence. The regulator actively investigates offshore providers and can impose fines, orders subject to periodic penalties and collection measures.
A foreign licence, decentralised protocol, wallet-based interface or US financial designation does not replace the Dutch requirement.
Promoters and affiliates also need to be careful.
The Ksa says it acts against providers and parties that promote or facilitate illegal online gambling, including affiliates, influencers, payment providers, hosting services and internet providers.
Its advertising guidance states that an operator without a Dutch licence may not advertise in the Netherlands. The regulator treats advertising broadly and includes promotional interviews, bonuses, sponsorship and brand-awareness activity.
Neutral data analysis and editorial reporting are different from solicitation, but a Dutch-facing product that sends users directly into execution, receives affiliate compensation or actively promotes an unlicensed venue should obtain specialist Dutch legal advice.
Individual-user exposure is more fact-specific.
The Ksa’s public enforcement material focuses heavily on providers and promoters. It also warns players that illegal sites lack Dutch consumer safeguards, addiction controls and payment protections.
We would not interpret the absence of a reported Polymarket prosecution against an individual trader as permission to use the service.
Users should check whether a provider appears in the Kansspelwijzer before depositing or trading.
Crypto does not create a workaround.
In the Polymarket decision, the Ksa rejected the argument that blockchain settlement and self-custodied wallets changed the product’s classification.
The regulator also stated that licensed online-gambling payments must be traceable to the player and treated anonymous crypto payment methods as incompatible with the licensed Dutch regime.
| Common Assumption | 2026 Dutch Reality |
|---|---|
| “It is peer-to-peer, so it is not gambling.” | The Ksa says facilitating trades between users can still amount to offering a game of chance. |
| “Skill and research determine my return.” | The Ksa rejected this as sufficient to remove Polymarket from the Games of Chance Act. |
| “It is a derivative regulated in another country.” | Foreign financial regulation does not replace Dutch permission. |
| “I use USDC, so betting law does not apply.” | The Ksa says blockchain and crypto do not change the underlying classification. |
| “The website opens, so it must be legal.” | Technical availability is not a Dutch licence. |
| “A VPN solves the restriction.” | Polymarket expressly prohibits VPN circumvention, and bypassing a block does not change Dutch law. |
Using Predictefy as a Research and Data Layer
Prediction-market data can be useful even when a particular underlying venue or contract is not legally available to a Dutch trader.
Prices can be studied as crowd-based probability estimates. Developers can also use them for analytics, forecasting research, news products, dashboards and institutional monitoring.
Predictefy provides one normalized API and SDK across supported venues. Its documented infrastructure includes:
- market and event discovery
- normalized prices and probabilities
- order books and trades where supported
- historical OHLCV data
- matched markets and cross-venue relationships
- indicative discrepancies and executable analysis when all required gates pass
- WebSocket streaming
- developer and AI-agent integrations
That removes the need to maintain a separate data schema for every prediction-market venue.
It does not remove jurisdictional restrictions.
| Predictefy Provides | Predictefy Does Not Provide |
|---|---|
| Normalized prediction-market data | A Dutch gambling licence |
| Cross-venue market matching | A ruling that a contract is legal in the Netherlands |
| Order books, prices and liquidity data | Permission to bypass a venue’s country restrictions |
| APIs, SDKs and research infrastructure | A substitute for advice from Dutch gaming or financial-regulatory counsel |
| Capability-qualified execution infrastructure for documented venues | A guarantee that execution is available or lawful in every jurisdiction |
Research Prediction Markets With Predictefy
Predictefy lets developers, analysts and institutions study prediction-market prices, order books, history and cross-venue relationships through one normalized stack. Explore the Predictefy API reference or start with the developer documentation. Market-data access remains separate from permission to trade on an underlying venue.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are prediction markets legal in the Netherlands?
Most general real-money prediction markets are not legally offerable in the Netherlands. Dutch remote-gambling licences permit casino games, sports-event bets and horse racing, but exclude non-sports event betting. A sports prediction contract can potentially be legal only when offered by a properly licensed Ksa operator and structured within the permitted sports-betting category.
Is Polymarket legal in the Netherlands?
No, Polymarket should not be treated as an authorised Dutch platform. The Kansspelautoriteit upheld enforcement against Adventure One QSS Inc. for offering Polymarket games of chance without the correct licence and reported a forfeited €420,000 penalty. Polymarket currently lists the Netherlands as fully blocked.
Can Dutch residents use Kalshi?
Kalshi accepts users from many countries subject to its Member Agreement, but it tells international users to determine whether their use is lawful locally. US CFTC regulation does not substitute for Dutch permission. We found no official Ksa source identifying Kalshi as a Dutch-licensed provider.
Are sports prediction markets legal in the Netherlands?
Sports-event betting can be legal when the market concerns an event during a sporting competition or its result and is offered by a provider holding the appropriate Ksa licence. A sports market on an unlicensed offshore platform is not made legal merely because the underlying event is a sport.
Is election betting legal in the Netherlands?
No. The Ksa expressly treats bets on elections and a country’s next president as non-sports event betting, which cannot be offered under a Dutch remote-gambling licence. Its public guidance also says betting on elections and comparable non-sports events is not permitted.
Can I use a VPN to access Polymarket from the Netherlands?
Polymarket expressly prohibits VPNs and similar tools used to bypass its geographic restrictions. Circumventing a platform block also does not change the Dutch legal classification or create a Ksa licence.
Can I use Predictefy to research prediction markets from the Netherlands?
Predictefy can be used as a normalized market-data and analytics layer, subject to its own terms and applicable law. Viewing probabilities, comparing venues or using an API for research is different from entering the underlying real-money contract. Seeing Polymarket, Kalshi or another venue in a Predictefy data feed does not certify that a Dutch user may legally trade there.
Conclusion
The Netherlands has a regulated online-gambling market, but it does not have a general licence for Polymarket-style prediction markets.
The permitted remote categories are narrow: casino games, sports-event betting and horse racing.
Non-sports event betting—including markets on elections, political outcomes and similar real-world events—is excluded even for operators that hold an ordinary remote-gambling licence.
The 2026 Polymarket enforcement decision makes the regulator’s position especially clear. The Ksa classified Polymarket’s offering as games of chance, rejected the argument that peer-to-peer trading, research, blockchain or crypto changed that result, and enforced the Dutch licensing rules.
Sports prediction contracts can potentially fit the regulated framework, but only through a properly licensed provider and only when the contract falls within the authorised sports-betting category.
Kalshi’s international access and US regulatory status do not answer the Dutch-law question. Platform onboarding, technical accessibility and local legality remain separate.
Predictefy can simplify market research by normalizing prediction-market data across venues. It does not turn a restricted or unlicensed event contract into a legal Dutch product.
This article reflects publicly available information reviewed on 22 August 2026. It is general educational information, not legal, tax, financial or investment advice. Anyone planning to operate, promote, route or trade prediction-market contracts in the Netherlands should obtain advice from qualified Dutch gaming and financial-regulatory counsel.