Brazil suspends Kalshi and Polymarket for operating prediction contracts without betting regulation

Brazil’s Ministry of Finance has suspended prediction-market activity in the country since April 2026, after concluding that firms such as Kalshi and Polymarket were selling event-based contracts without the license and tax compliance required of regulated betting operators. For high-risk PSPs, the key point is simple: Brazil is treating these products as bets, not as a separate category with lighter rules.

1. The Ministry of Finance said Kalshi, Polymarket, and other prediction-market operators were offering “yes or no” contracts on real-world events, including elections, sports competitions, celebrity weddings, and reality-show finals. Authorities concluded that this puts the platforms under the same logic as betting sites.
2. According to Folha de S.Paulo, the companies were ordered off the market for failing to meet the requirements applied to regulated betting operators. Those requirements include paying a R$ 30 million licence fee, collecting federal taxes, and complying with anti-money laundering rules.
3. The ministry also said the platforms should be subject to the same restrictions as licensed betting sites, including limits on topics such as sports and virtual-game outcomes like Fortune Tiger. Regulated betting operators in Brazil are not allowed to offer wagers on elections.
4. Brazil’s Ministry of Finance counted 26 other smaller companies operating as prediction markets in the country, and all of them were blocked. Brazilian users lost access to the services offered by those platforms, while regulated betting businesses in Brazil were not affected by the measure.
5. Kalshi co-founder Luana Lopes Lara, who is Brazilian and 29 years old, said the company expects to reverse the government’s decision. The story lands in a market that moved US$ 51 billion in 2025, with Bernstein projecting that Kalshi and Polymarket’s global expansion could push prediction-market flow to US$ 1 trillion by 2030.

Kalshi and Polymarket are the largest players in prediction markets, and both have market valuations above US$ 10 billion. Kalshi was valued at US$ 22 billion in February in its latest funding round, which included US$ 1 billion from Coatue Management. For PSPs and acquirers, Brazil’s move is the useful signal: if a jurisdiction decides prediction contracts are betting, then the usual high-risk stack applies—licensing, tax, AML, and product restrictions all come back to the table at once.