The prediction market’s Dutch arm, Adventure One, allegedly offered illegal bets, including on elections in the Netherlands.
The Netherlands Gambling Authority said it imposed a penalty on prediction markets platform Polymarket’s Dutch arm, Adventure One, for offering gambling to residents without a license.
In a Tuesday notice, Dutch authorities ordered the Polymarket company to “cease its activities immediately,” or face up to $990,000 in fines. According to authorities, Adventure One was in violation of Dutch law for offering illegal bets, including those on local elections, and the company had not responded to requests to address these activities.
”Prediction markets are on the rise, including in the Netherlands,” said the Netherlands Gambling Authority’s director of licensing and supervision, Ella Seijsener. “These types of companies offer bets that are not permitted in our market under any circumstances, not even by license holders.”
Polymarket and other platforms offering event contracts on prediction market platforms face similar scrutiny in the United States, where many individual state authorities have filed lawsuits over sports gambling. However, the chair of one of the federal financial regulators, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said on Tuesday that he would defend the agency’s “exclusive jurisdiction” over prediction markets, criticizing state-level action.
Related: Polymarket’s lawsuit could decide who regulates US prediction markets
Cointelegraph reached out to Polymarket for comment, but had not received a response at the time of publication. The company’s chief legal officer, Neal Kumar, said on Feb. 9 that Polymarket “welcome[s] dialogue with other states while the federal courts” consider the issue of jurisdiction in the US.
Dutch tax on crypto passes House of Representatives
The Polymarket crackdown in the Netherlands came within a week of the country’s House of Representatives advancing a proposal to introduce a 36% capital gains tax on investments that would likely include cryptocurrencies. If passed by the Dutch Senate and signed into law, it could take effect as early as 2028.
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