Polymarket asks Dutch court to classify its contracts as financial products

Polymarket has gone to court in The Hague seeking to overturn a Dutch order that forced the prediction-market platform to stop serving users in the Netherlands. The case centres on whether contracts tied to real-world events are gambling products or financial instruments.

Polymarket says its contracts resemble derivatives, including futures traded on financial markets, and should be supervised by the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets, or AFM. The Dutch gambling regulator, Ksa, takes the opposite view: betting on real-world events constitutes gambling.

The dispute follows enforcement action that began with a Ksa order dated Jan. 20 and published Feb. 17. The regulator said Polymarket was offering games of chance without a licence and threatened a penalty of €420,000 a week, capped at €840,000. Polymarket stopped Dutch users from placing bets later that month, but the Ksa concluded it had acted too late, demanded €420,000 in May and rejected the company’s objection in June.

Dutch law permits betting only on sport, according to the Ksa, meaning a gambling licence would not be available for Polymarket’s event markets. Ksa director Ella Seijsener said prediction markets were growing in the Netherlands, but that such bets were not permitted even for licensed operators.

The platform attracted particular attention around the October 2025 general election. Dutch users traded more than $30 million in contracts linked to the parliamentary vote, including markets on whether political parties would gain or lose seats.

The court action will test Polymarket’s argument that the contracts should be treated as financial products. Gambling lawyer Micha Schimmel told DutchNews that the challenge had little prospect of success, citing a 2015 ruling that found a product could be financial in nature while still qualifying as gambling.

The Netherlands case comes after Polymarket sued New York state officials over the regulation of its prediction-market business, as we reported in September. Polymarket is also banned in France and Germany; in July, it said it would challenge France’s nationwide website block through that country’s legal system.