Kenya suspends new gambling licensing rules as North Macedonia moves to a state online gambling monopoly

Here’s the week’s regulatory stack for high-risk payments: Kenya’s Supreme Court has put new gambling licensing rules on hold, North Macedonia has handed online gambling to a state monopoly, and Ireland has pushed Polymarket to cut off local players. For PSPs, acquirers, and banking partners, that combination means more jurisdiction-specific friction, not less.

1. Kenya’s Supreme Court suspended the new licensing rules for the gambling sector. The practical point for operators and payment providers is that the licensing framework is now on pause, so any onboarding, renewal, or compliance planning tied to the new rules has to wait for the court process to move.
2. North Macedonia introduced a state monopoly on online gambling. That is the kind of policy change that can alter which counterparties remain bankable overnight, because the licensing and payment flow shifts from a competitive market to a single-state channel.
3. Pension funds in the country that leads in gambling losses invested more than $10 billion in gambling. The source does not name the country, but the number is large enough to matter for anyone mapping capital flows into gambling exposure, whether for counterparties, treasury planning, or reputational screening.
4. Polymarket closed access to players from Ireland after the gambling regulator GRAI threatened to go to court. That is a clean example of how quickly a prediction-market or gambling-adjacent product can get forced into geo-blocking once the regulator decides to escalate.
5. Bulgaria rejected opposition proposals to raise taxes and ban advertising for gambling. For operators, that means no immediate tightening from this move; for PSPs, it keeps the existing commercial setup in place, at least for now.
6. The Central Bank of Russia proposed limits on prize draws and other gambling-like mechanics inside bank and broker apps. If adopted, that would affect embedded gaming-style features in financial apps, which is exactly the sort of crossover that often ends up with payments, fraud, and compliance teams in the same room.
7. Polymarket said Kalshi may have been involved in the FBI search of Shane Coplan. That allegation is part of an ongoing dispute around the company, not a resolved fact, but it shows the level of pressure surrounding prediction markets when regulators and law enforcement get involved.