EU Regulator Says Prediction Markets Rife With Insider Trading

ESMA's framing matters less as an enforcement action than as a signal that EU regulators are moving from watching prediction markets to scrutinising their access architecture. The inconsistency it flags — the same platforms blocking users in some member states but not others — is a structural problem, since a patchwork of geo-blocks invites exactly the circumvention the regulator describes. For Kalshi and Polymarket, the practical exposure is that fragmented EU access becomes a regulatory liability rather than a compliance choice. Whether ESMA converts the rhetoric into a formal review, and whether the platforms harmonise their EU posture first, is the open question.