Polymarket Draws Billions in US Trading Despite Offshore Ban
▼ Summary
– A Rutgers study estimates that US traders, despite a ban, account for about 30% of Polymarket’s trading volume, funneling between $10.6 and $26.7 billion through the platform.
– US-based traders show distinct behaviors, such as higher interest in US elections and sports, which researchers used to estimate their activity on the offshore crypto platform.
– Polymarket’s primary platform has been banned in the US since 2022 for operating as an unregistered derivatives exchange, but US traders use VPNs to bypass the restriction.
– The study, commissioned by the Coalition for Prediction Markets, provides the first major public estimate of US activity, though its methodology relies on indirect proxies and is imprecise.
– The CFTC may use extraterritorial jurisdiction to target bad actors on offshore platforms, but it is unclear if it will pursue US traders using VPNs who otherwise follow the law.
Roughly 30 percent of all trading activity on Polymarket originates from the United States, according to a new study. That figure is striking because every one of those traders is breaking the law. The crypto-based prediction market is officially banned in the U.S., yet Americans continue to pour billions into the platform.
The research, led by Rutgers University statistician Harry Crane, estimates that U. S. traders funneled between $10.6 billion and $26.7 billion through Polymarket. To reach that conclusion, Crane analyzed what appeared to be U. S.-based trades on offshore prediction market platforms from May 2025 through April 2026. He found that many of Polymarket’s highest-volume markets were heavily focused on American events, including U. S. elections and sports. The study suggests U. S. traders were especially active on Polymarket’s sports vertical, accounting for roughly half of all activity in those markets.
“It’s been known that there are individuals on there, but what hasn’t been known is the extent, whether it’s one or 10 or an actually appreciable fraction,” Crane said. He also serves on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Innovation Advisory Committee, which advises federal regulators on technology’s impact on markets. The study was commissioned and funded by the Coalition for Prediction Markets, a lobbying group whose members include Kalshi, Coinbase, and Crypto.com. Polymarket is not a member.
Polymarket has become one of the world’s most popular prediction markets, enabling users to wager on outcomes ranging from NBA Finals winners to bitcoin’s price in five-minute increments to military actions in Iran. The platform has partnered with U. S. media companies like Substack and Dow Jones, as well as sports leagues including Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League.
Yet Polymarket’s core crypto platform has been banned in the U. S. since 2022, after federal regulators determined it was operating as an unregistered derivatives trading platform. In December 2025, Polymarket launched a separate, U. S.-licensed mobile app called Polymarket US. According to a Pew Research report, Polymarket US generated about $1.6 billion in trading volume in April 2026. During the same period, the main crypto platform saw roughly $9 billion in activity, making it by far the larger marketplace.
To bypass the ban, U. S. traders are believed to use virtual private networks to mask their locations and access the Polymarket website , even though the platform’s terms of service prohibit VPN use. Because of this, accurately measuring the size of the market is difficult, and Crane’s study is the first major public attempt to do so.
Without direct access to site-traffic geography, Crane developed a methodology based on behavioral differences between U. S. and international traders. He looked at the time of day trades were placed and which markets attracted the most interest , U. S. traders, for instance, are far more likely to bet on American sporting events than their global counterparts. The resulting estimate is imprecise but offers the best snapshot available of surreptitious U. S. participation. “It’s not perfect, but I think it provides a reasonable estimate of the fraction of the volume attributable to offshore trading,” said Charles Martineau, an associate professor of finance at the University of Toronto Scarborough who has studied Polymarket trading behavior. “But using these indirect proxies is common in finance research.”
Polymarket declined to comment.
The CFTC generally lacks authority over offshore prediction markets. But agency chairman Michael Selig told WIRED last month that he is willing to use extraterritorial jurisdiction to go after bad actors on a case-by-case basis. It remains unclear whether the agency would pursue U. S.-based traders who used VPNs to circumvent the ban but otherwise followed the law. The CFTC did not respond to requests for comment.
One high-profile example of U. S.-based Polymarket activity emerged in April, when the Department of Justice charged a special forces soldier with using classified information about the capture of former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro to clear roughly $400,000 in profits from Polymarket trades.
The study warns that U. S.-based activity will likely continue to thrive if Polymarket’s crypto platform retains its market share. It projects that U. S. trading volume could reach $133 billion by 2030.
(Source: Wired)
