Polymarket is intensifying talks with policymakers in London, Brussels and other European capitals in an effort to have its event contracts treated as financial instruments rather than wagers.
The New York-based prediction market, now raising capital at a valuation above $20 billion, argues that a single financial services framework would be more coherent than the current patchwork of national gambling rules.
The company’s case is that contracts linked to interest-rate decisions, inflation prints, elections, sports results or weather outcomes function more like derivatives than traditional bets.
In the United States the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has already treated many such products as event contracts.
Polymarket wants European authorities to apply a similar logic under the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, known as MiFID.
That classification would let the platform seek authorization as a financial firm and, in theory, passport services across the European Union instead of applying for a gambling licence in every member state.
People familiar with the discussions say the firm has met officials at the European Securities and Markets Authority and the European Commission, as well as supervisors in individual countries.
In June, ESMA chair Verena Ross received members of Polymarket’s legal team together with advisers from A&O Shearman and the public-affairs firm Hanbury Strategy.
The following day company executives sat down with Nikhil Rathi, chief executive of the UK Financial Conduct Authority.
Polymarket has also joined the trade group Blockchain for Europe as part of the same outreach.
A company statement said it is “committed to engaging early and openly with policymakers and regulators” as it expands.
The push comes after a series of restrictions.
Gambling authorities in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and elsewhere have treated the platform as unlicensed betting.
France’s regulator ordered internet providers to block access after earlier geo-restrictions proved leaky. Several other countries have added the site to illegal-gambling lists or demanded local licences that Polymarket has not obtained.
Retail users in much of Europe therefore cannot trade legally without workarounds.
Reclassification would not automatically open the market.
ESMA has already stated that event contracts whose underlying question matches MiFID’s list of financial underlyings are derivatives.
Because many of those contracts pay a fixed amount or nothing, they can fall under existing national bans on binary options sold to retail clients.
Contracts on politics or sport may still be viewed as gambling even if other markets are treated as finance.
The FCA has drawn a similar line, keeping financial and climatic events in its own remit while leaving politics and sport with the Gambling Commission. ESMA has also flagged insider-trading risks on prediction platforms.
The outcome will test whether Europe is prepared to fold a fast-growing, crypto-native product into its financial-markets regime or keep it inside fragmented gaming laws. For now the conversations continue, and no regulator has publicly endorsed the change Polymarket is seeking.