Brazil Banned Polymarket, Kalshi, and 25 Other Prediction Platforms Overnight

Brazil moved fast. On April 24, 2026, the country’s National Monetary Council — known in Portuguese as the Conselho Monetário Nacional, or CMN — issued Resolution No. 5,298, a sweeping regulation that effectively bans all derivative contracts tied to non-financial events. That means sports, politics, entertainment, and cultural outcomes are all off the table. The Ministry of Finance, working alongside the national telecommunications regulator Anatel, immediately began blocking access to 27 prediction market platforms across the country.

The platforms targeted include some of the biggest names in the space: Polymarket, Kalshi, PredictIt, Robinhood’s prediction market feature, and Fanatics Markets all appear on the list. Brazilian users who tried to access these services shortly after the announcement found them blocked, with enforcement moving quickly after the regulation was issued. While the rule takes formal legal effect on May 4, the practical lockout was already underway.

Why Brazil Acted — and How Quickly It Moved

Brazil’s government has been aggressive in cleaning up its online gambling market since administration established a formal licensing framework for sports betting in recent years. Prediction markets were always an uncomfortable fit in that structure. The Secretariat of Prizes and Betting (SPA), Brazil’s gambling regulator, issued a technical note concluding that these platforms “simply reproduce the essential elements of fixed quota bets” — a category of wagering already tightly regulated under Brazilian law.

Executive Secretary of the Ministry of Finance Dario Durigan spelled out the reasoning plainly: “Brazil has established clear rules for the operation of fixed-odds bets, and there will be no room for those who try to operate on the sidelines of this system.” Miriam Belchior, Chief of Staff to the President, added that the measure “seeks to protect income and reduce the exposure of families to unsafe practices.”

The government’s concern goes beyond legal categorization. Brazilian officials cited rising household debt as a direct motivating factor, arguing that unregulated online wagering dressed up as financial trading was contributing to financial instability for ordinary citizens. The Central Bank of Brazil also raised concerns that prediction market platforms failed to meet the know-your-customer and transparency requirements mandated for licensed financial activity in the country.

The Kalshi Connection Worth Noting

The timing is particularly notable for Kalshi. Just weeks before the ban, the platform had announced a partnership with XP International in March 2026 — a high-profile move widely seen as an attempt to build a legitimate regulatory foothold in the Brazilian market. That effort came to an abrupt end. The Central Bank’s position made clear that no amount of domestic partnership could change how the government classified what Kalshi was actually selling.

Polymarket operates as a decentralized, blockchain-based platform, which makes it structurally harder to fully block. But Brazil’s approach — treating all event-based forecasting contracts as illegal gambling regardless of delivery mechanism — signals that the government is not interested in drawing distinctions between centralized and decentralized structures. The Ministry of Finance has indicated it will coordinate with financial institutions to cut off payment processing in addition to the Anatel-enforced website blocks.

What It Means Beyond Brazil

Brazil is the third Latin American country to take restrictive action against prediction markets, following Argentina and Colombia. But the scale matters here. Brazil is the largest economy in Latin America, with a recently regulated sports betting market that drew enormous global operator interest. Its decision to draw a firm line around event-based derivatives carries weight that the earlier South American actions did not.

In the United States, Kalshi operates under federal CFTC oversight as a designated contract market, giving it legal standing domestically that prediction markets in most other jurisdictions lack. Some U.S. states have separately moved to restrict or ban prediction market activity at the state level, reflecting similar concerns about whether these products constitute gambling under state law. Brazil’s approach — treating them definitively as gambling regardless of any financial framing — may inform how regulators in other markets ultimately resolve that question.

For operators and investors watching the global expansion of betting exchanges and prediction-style products, the Brazil ban is a reminder that regulatory risk in this space remains substantial. The 27 platforms affected by Resolution No. 5,298 now face a choice: exit the market, challenge the regulation through legal channels, or wait to see whether the enforcement holds. Given Brazil’s track record on enforcement in its licensed gaming market, waiting is likely the least viable option.