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Story: Americans Bet $571 Million on Polymarket’s Foreign-Conflict Markets Despite U.S. Ban

By Dan Saada

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Why Foreign-Conflict Markets Pull U.S. Traders In. The draw isn't hard to understand. American traders interested in political prediction markets…

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What $571 Million Actually Means for the Platform. Volume like that isn't noise. It's a signal that domestic alternatives aren't meeting demand, and…

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U.S.-linked wallets poured $571 million into political contracts on Polymarket over the past year. No other country came close to matching that volume.

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That's the core tension here. Polymarket is a decentralized prediction market built on blockchain infrastructure, which means it operates outside the kind of centralized…

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$571 million. From users who aren't supposed to be there at all.

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The draw isn't hard to understand. American traders interested in political prediction markets face a pretty limited domestic menu. U.S.

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Prediction markets as a category have been fighting for regulatory legitimacy in the U.S. for years.

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Polymarket's position is murky by design. It runs on decentralized infrastructure, which makes enforcement genuinely difficult.

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Read also: Congress Races the Clock on Crypto Rules as Midterms Close In

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Volume like that isn't noise. It's a signal that domestic alternatives aren't meeting demand, and that the ban — whatever its legal teeth — isn't functioning as a practical…

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The specific focus on foreign-conflict markets matters too. It's not just that Americans want prediction markets — it's that they want markets covering events that U.S.

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Polymarket has carved out a niche that no U.S.-regulated competitor currently fills. Whether that niche stays permanently offshore or eventually finds some path to domestic…

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And that silence is kind of the whole story right now.

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Regulators know the volume is there. The $571 million figure isn't a secret — it's visible on-chain, traceable to wallet activity linked to U.S. addresses.

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See also: Bank of England Pushes New Retail Payments Overhaul With Open Stakeholder Consultation

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