A reader opening polymarket.com from a US connection does not see a market book. They see a banner telling them trading is blocked in the United States and pointing them at polymarket.us instead. The site still loads, but only in view-only mode: the news and information parts of the page work, the trading parts do not.
That split is the whole answer in miniature. There is a US-facing Polymarket that is permitted to take trades from US residents, and there is a separate international Polymarket that is not. Below is what each one actually is, where the rules come from, and what has happened in the states so far. Checked on 29 October 2026. This is not legal advice.
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The short answer
Polymarket now operates a US-regulated venue, polymarket.us, run through QCX LLC (doing business as Polymarket US) and QC Clearing LLC. The international site, polymarket.com, does not accept US traders and its own terms list the United States as a restricted jurisdiction.
In Nevada, a judge granted a preliminary injunction against Polymarket US in May 2026.
How the two Polymarkets split
Polymarket's US venue came from an acquisition. Quadcode Group announced on 24 July 2025 that it had closed the sale of its CFTC-licensed derivatives exchange, QCX LLC, and its clearinghouse, QC Clearing LLC, together QCEX, to Polymarket for $112 million in cash and Polymarket shares. Quadcode said QCEX held a Designated Contract Market (DCM) licence and a Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO) licence.
The international business is a different legal animal. Polymarket.com is run by Adventure One QSS, Inc. and its terms of use, effective 11 August 2026, name the United States of America as a Restricted Territory. The terms also list Alberta, Australia, Belgium, British Columbia, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Ontario, Poland, Quebec, Russia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Taiwan, Thailand, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. A US visitor is not redirected: the terms permit people in a restricted jurisdiction to use the content features only, which is why the page loads with trading disabled.
What the CFTC order from 2022 actually did
On 3 January 2022 the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued an order against the company behind polymarket.com. It found that Blockratize, Inc., doing business as Polymarket.com, had been running an unregistered facility for event-based binary options and had violated the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC regulations.
The remedies were specific. The company had to cease and desist from the violations, pay a civil monetary penalty of $1,400,000, and by 14 January 2022 stop offering access to markets on polymarket.com that did not comply with the Act, winding those markets down and making funds available to participants. The order does not mention blocking US users.
For the broader regulatory frame, our guide to whether prediction markets are legal in the US covers how the CFTC relates to state gambling regulators, and the dividing line is central to how prediction markets and sports betting differ.
Who can actually open a Polymarket US account
The participant agreement for polymarket.us is signed with QCX LLC and QC Clearing LLC. The threshold conditions are set out there. A participant must be a natural person, at least 18 years old, having attained the age of majority in their state or country of residence, with the legal capacity to enter the agreement.
The agreement then goes further on jurisdiction. A participant must not be domiciled in, a resident of, or located in any jurisdiction where access to or trading on the system is prohibited under applicable law or by Polymarket US policy. It names three categories specifically: countries subject to comprehensive US sanctions administered by OFAC (Cuba, Iran, North Korea, the Crimea region of Ukraine, the so-called Donetsk People's Republic, and the so-called Luhansk People's Republic); any jurisdiction on the Financial Action Task Force's black or grey lists; and any jurisdiction that has imposed a national prohibition or warning on products comparable to the contracts, including retail binary options.
The agreement names no US state, and Polymarket US does not publish a list of the states it serves.
Nevada's injunction against Polymarket US
On 1 June 2026 the Nevada Gaming Control Board put out a release confirming that on 29 May 2026 Judge Woodbury of the First Judicial District Court for the State of Nevada ruled in favour of the Board, granting its motion for a preliminary injunction against QCX LLC, doing business as Polymarket US. The Board's chairman, Mike Dreitzer, said the Board was very pleased with the ruling.
The release does not state the injunction's scope. It does say previously entered preliminary injunction orders prohibit Kalshi and Coinbase from offering or facilitating sports-, election-, and entertainment-related event contracts in Nevada, and that the Board considers sports-event contracts to constitute wagering activity under Nevada statute. For how the two venues compare, see our Kalshi vs Polymarket page.
California, specifically
California is the state readers ask about most. Polymarket US publishes no state list, so it neither includes nor excludes California in writing. Whether a California resident can open an account is decided when they sign up.
For more on Polymarket and California, see our state-by-state breakdown of Polymarket's California position.
Which countries polymarket.com will not serve
polymarket.com's terms of use (effective 11 August 2026) bar trading by people who live, are located or are incorporated in: the United States of America, Alberta, Australia, Belgium, British Columbia, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Ontario, Poland, Quebec, Russia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Taiwan, Thailand, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, plus any other restricted territory the terms define elsewhere.
The terms are blunt about workarounds. Using a VPN or any similar tool to try to get around these restrictions is strictly prohibited, and the company can place offending wallets into close-only mode.
A venue declining to serve a country is a fact about the venue. It is not a statement that a resident of that country commits an offence by trading, in either direction. For UK readers, our UK prediction markets law guide sets out how the FCA and the UK Gambling Commission frame these products domestically.
What this all adds up to
For a US resident today, the practical landscape has two doors. One is polymarket.us, operated by QCX LLC and QC Clearing LLC inside the CFTC-regulated event contract regime, for adults who meet its participant agreement's rules. A Nevada court granted a preliminary injunction against it in May 2026. The other is polymarket.com, which is not open to US traders and whose own terms list the United States as a Restricted Territory.
iPredicta is a UK-based discovery platform for prediction markets, and we treat the US regulatory picture as a moving file rather than a settled one. Two questions are not answered in public yet: the scope of Nevada's injunction, and which states Polymarket US serves.
Frequently asked questions
Is Polymarket legal in the US?
Yes, in a specific form: Polymarket operates a CFTC-regulated US venue at polymarket.us, run through QCX LLC and QC Clearing LLC. The international site, polymarket.com, does not accept US traders and lists the United States as a Restricted Territory in its terms of use. Polymarket acquired QCEX, the entity that held the Designated Contract Market and Derivatives Clearing Organization licences, from Quadcode Group for $112 million in a deal that closed by 24 July 2025. One live caveat sits at the state level: on 29 May 2026 a Nevada court granted the Nevada Gaming Control Board a preliminary injunction against QCX LLC, doing business as Polymarket US. The scope of that order is not spelled out in the Board's release.
What country is Polymarket legal in?
Polymarket.com's terms of use, effective 11 August 2026, define availability by listing the places it will not serve rather than the places it will. The restricted list names the United States, Alberta, Australia, Belgium, British Columbia, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Ontario, Poland, Quebec, Russia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Taiwan, Thailand, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The terms also carve out any further restricted territory the document defines elsewhere. A country missing from this list is not automatically open: the terms bar trading from any jurisdiction on Polymarket's published geoblock list, which it may update without notice, and from places under comprehensive US sanctions, which the terms say include Iran, Syria, Cuba, North Korea and the Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine. All of this is about the venue's own access rules, not about whether trading on it is lawful for a resident of a given country, which is a separate question with its own answer in each jurisdiction.
Is Polymarket legal in California?
Polymarket US does not publish a state-by-state availability list that enumerates California either way, and its participant agreement names no US states. Whether a given California resident can actually open and fund a polymarket.us account is a question that resolves at the sign-up flow and the platform's own policies, not from a public map. On the international side, polymarket.com's terms list the United States as a Restricted Territory and the site shows US visitors a view-only mode. For more detail, see our state-by-state California guide.
What did the CFTC's 2022 order against Polymarket actually do?
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission's order of 3 January 2022 found that Blockratize, Inc., doing business as Polymarket.com, had been operating an unregistered facility for event-based binary options in violation of the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC regulations. The order required the company to cease and desist from the violations, pay a civil monetary penalty of $1,400,000, and by 14 January 2022 stop offering access to non-compliant markets on polymarket.com and wind them down, making funds available to participants. The order does not mention geoblocking: it does not require Polymarket to block US users by IP.
Can I use a VPN to access polymarket.com from the US?
No. Polymarket.com's terms of use state in capital letters that using a VPN or any similar tool to attempt to circumvent the restrictions is strictly prohibited. The terms give the company discretion to place wallets found in violation into close-only mode and to prohibit access to the trading features. For a US resident, the venue intended for use is polymarket.us, which is CFTC-regulated and governed by the Polymarket US participant agreement. That agreement sets its own eligibility rules, including age and jurisdiction thresholds, and the venue is subject to the Nevada court injunction described above. The two platforms are different legal entities under different rulebooks and should be treated that way.