Polymarket adds deposit limits and self-exclusion
Deposit limits that cannot be reversed, temporary or permanent self-exclusion, and referral for treatment. The package Polymarket presented on Wednesday will sound familiar to anyone working in regulated gambling, even though the platform calls it responsible trading and not responsible gambling.
The clinical referral has a partner. The company has partnered with Birches Health, a virtual treatment provider for gambling addiction, to offer mental health resources to users when it detects what it describes as compulsive financial trading behaviors.
Malea Otranto, who recently took over as the company's global head of safety, explained to CNN that they will monitor how users utilize these features and assess whether adjustments are needed as the platform grows. Her argument is that it is crucial to give people control over how they want to use the service, especially during a period of rapid growth.
The move comes at a time of increasing pressure on prediction markets, which are questioned both for their resemblance to traditional betting products and for the risk of insider trading.
And the numbers there are striking. Polymarket and Kalshi reported more than 100 potential cases of insider trading in 2026: the former referred more than 90 accounts to authorities and the latter more than 50. In response, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has only initiated civil actions against three operators, a gap that raises the question of whether the regulator has the necessary resources to process what the platforms themselves are reporting.
Known cases show the type of information involved. A U.S. Army sergeant major was prosecuted for allegedly using classified information about the operation to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and trading on that information on Polymarket. A former White House teleprompter operator was accused of trading on data from President Donald Trump's speeches. And former Republican congressman George Santos received a $35,000 fine after taking $17,000 positions in Kalshi contracts linked to his own attendance at the State of the Union address.
Polymarket is one of the largest prediction markets in the world and operates under CFTC supervision in the United States, a framework designed for financial derivatives and not for gambling. This classification is what is being debated in several countries: in Brazil, the platform has been blocked since April along with 26 others, and the AGU asked the Secretariat of Prizes and Betting a week ago for the complete history of oversight on the company. The fact that it is now voluntarily adopting typical responsible gambling tools is, in itself, an indication of where the discussion is heading.
Tags: Polymarket, prediction markets, responsible gaming, Commodity Futures Trading Commission