Finland adds loss limits, Polymarket blocks VPN workarounds, Chile moves to tax foreign sportsbooks

This week’s batch of regulatory and platform updates is the sort that payment teams in high-risk verticals should actually read: Finland is tightening player loss controls, Polymarket is closing the VPN loophole, and Chile is building a tax collection system for foreign betting platforms. Add Ukraine’s licensing numbers, a Macquarie World Cup forecast, a Russian draft bill on gambling treatment, and a U.S. review of Kalshi trades, and you get a useful map of where friction is increasing.

1. Finland is introducing limits on losses in its market. For PSPs and acquirers serving betting operators, that usually means more pressure on player monitoring, transaction controls, and risk policies tied to affordability and spend caps.
2. Polymarket has started blocking users who try to bypass geographic restrictions with VPNs. For any platform operating with market-by-market access rules, this is a reminder that location controls are now enforced at the product level, not just in compliance documents.
3. Chile is introducing a tax payment system for foreign sportsbook platforms. That matters because once a jurisdiction builds a collection mechanism, the question stops being whether offshore operators can serve the market at all and becomes how they are tracked, billed, and settled.
4. Ukraine’s gambling regulator, PlayCity, issued 250 licenses and collected $12.8 million in its first year. For payment providers looking at newly regulated markets, that is a sign of how quickly a licensing regime can turn into a live acquiring and settlement opportunity.
5. Macquarie estimates World Cup 2026 betting volume at a record $50 billion. That is the sort of number that gets attention from PSPs, fraud teams, and acquiring banks long before kickoff, because tournament spikes are where chargebacks, AML monitoring, and capacity planning stop being theoretical.

There is also a Russia-specific draft bill in the State Duma to create state programs for treating gambling addiction, and the U.S. authorities have begun reviewing trades on prediction market exchange Kalshi over bets linked to a former congressman. Different jurisdictions, different mechanics, same basic theme: oversight is getting closer to the money flow.