Kalshi's taker fee is 0.07 × contracts × price × (1 − price), times the series multiplier (1 by default) and rounded up to the next cent, so it peaks at 1.75¢ per contract at a 50¢ price. Resting (maker) orders are free on standard series and pay a fee only on the series Kalshi lists with maker fees.
Country-by-country rules, regulator actions and sources for Polymarket and Kalshi.
This is not legal advice, and we don't say whether trading is legal for you in India. We report what each platform's published rules say about India and the public regulator, court and police actions we could source, each with a date. Those rules change fast, so check the platform's current terms and the law in India before doing anything. ‘Not listed’ only means a platform's own list doesn't name India; it doesn't mean trading there is permitted.
Status under each platform's own published rules, and the most recent public action we could source, as of 2026-09-24.
Last public action: 2026-05-21 · Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) · Blocking order (Polymarket)
Source: Secondary report
Dated public actions on record: 2
This page keeps two things apart for India: what each platform's own published rules say, and what regulators, courts and police in India have publicly done. A platform's list is its own policy and a government order is the government's, so a country can be on one and not the other.
The status labels are the same as in the main table. Restricted means the platform's own list blocks trading from India. Close-only means existing users there can close positions but can't open new ones. Some regions means only named regions are restricted. Separate product means residents use a different, separately regulated product, as US residents do with the Polymarket US app. Not listed means the platform's published list doesn't name India; that is not the same as permitted, and a regulator may still block the site.
Polymarket publishes two official lists that don't fully match: its Help Center page (updated August 14, 2026) and its developer docs (undated). We follow the dated Help Center list and say where the developer docs differ. Kalshi statuses follow its Member Agreement as fetched on September 24, 2026; the agreement itself is undated.
Each action shows the authority as it names itself, what it did, the platform it concerns and the date: the date of the action where it was published, otherwise the date it was first reported. Every entry is marked Official, Platform document or Secondary report. Where only secondary reporting exists, we say ‘reported by’ and name the outlet; where official sources conflict, we report both.
‘No public action found’ means our searches found none, not that none exists. Nothing on this page says whether trading is legal for you: for that, check the platforms' current terms and the law in India.
Polymarket's Help Center page on geographic restrictions, updated August 14, 2026, lists 39 blocked countries and a separate close-only list. India is on neither. Its undated developer geoblock documentation doesn't name India either, so the two Polymarket lists agree on India. Under the labels used on this site, India is Not listed for Polymarket. That describes Polymarket's own policy only; it doesn't mean trading from India is permitted, and India's IT ministry is reported to have ordered the site blocked (below).
In practice the picture is different from the list. Since May 22, 2026, polymarket.com has been reported unreachable on Indian internet providers, showing a ‘This site can't be reached’ error, as reported by CoinDesk and Yogonet on that date. That block comes from the government side (a MeitY order under Section 69A, per those reports), not from Polymarket's own geoblock. We found no Polymarket blog post, help article or notice that mentions India, and no report of the Polymarket app being removed from Indian app stores as of September 26, 2026.
Polymarket's Help Center also says that using a VPN or similar tool to get around its geographic restrictions is prohibited under its Terms of Use. Separately, MeitY's April 2026 letter to VPN providers (see the regulator section) named Polymarket as an ‘illegal and blocked’ platform, as reported by The Crypto Times. PolyKal describes no way around either.
Kalshi's Member Agreement (Section VI, ‘Restricted Jurisdictions’, undated; fetched September 24, 2026) names India. Under this site's labels, India is Restricted for Kalshi. India was not on Kalshi's first international restricted list in its Exchange Notice of October 23, 2025, nor on the updated notice of November 4, 2025. Business Standard reported on June 23, 2026 that Kalshi updated the agreement on June 17, 2026 to add India, with wording that users ‘domiciled in, organised in or located in India are prohibited from trading event contracts on the platform’; Yogonet carried the same report on June 23, 2026. Kalshi's help center (updated March 20, 2026) says international trading is subject to the Member Agreement.
Whether Kalshi also received a government blocking order is only partly documented. On May 21, 2026, ThePrint quoted an unnamed MeitY official saying the ministry had issued an order to Polymarket and was ‘in the process of issuing an order to Kalshi as soon as Friday’ (May 22, 2026). Business Standard reported on June 23, 2026 that kalshi.com had become inaccessible across Indian internet providers in the last week of May 2026, and gambling.com reported on August 6, 2026 that blocking orders had been issued to both platforms. No official document confirms either order, because Section 69A orders are not published. Earlier, Bloomberg's May 18, 2026 headline read ‘Kalshi, Polymarket Defy India Ban on Online Betting Platforms’.
The authority that blocks websites in India is the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), acting under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000. Section 69A orders are confidential by rule, so no primary text of an order against Polymarket or Kalshi is public; every entry below rests on press reporting unless marked otherwise. The substantive law is the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 (Act No. 32 of 2025), passed by the Lok Sabha on August 20, 2025 and the Rajya Sabha on August 21, 2025, and assented to and gazetted on August 22, 2025. Its rules were notified on April 22, 2026 and came into force on May 1, 2026, creating the Online Gaming Authority of India (OGAI).
Provisions of the 2025 Act that the reporting cites: Section 1(2) extends it to online money gaming services ‘operated from outside the territory of India’; Section 2(1)(g) defines an ‘online money game’ as one where a user pays fees or deposits money ‘in expectation of winning’, whether it involves skill, chance or both; Section 5 prohibits offering such services, Section 6 prohibits advertising them, and Section 7 prohibits banks, financial institutions and ‘any other person facilitating financial transactions’ from processing payments for them. Section 9 sets penalties of up to 3 years' imprisonment or a fine of up to ₹1 crore for offering, up to 2 years or ₹50 lakh for advertising, and up to 3 years or ₹1 crore for facilitating payments, rising to 3–5 years and ₹1–2 crore for repeat offences. Section 10 makes offences under Sections 5 and 7 cognizable and non-bailable, and Section 14 makes content relating to online money gaming services ‘liable to be blocked’ under the IT Act. The primary text is on MeitY's website.
Public actions, in order. April 23, 2026: IT Secretary S. Krishnan said prediction markets fall under the Online Gaming Act and that VPN access ‘is a slightly tricky issue and we are seeing how we can intervene’, as reported by Asia Gaming Brief (secondary). April 25, 2026: a MeitY letter to VPN service providers named Polymarket as an ‘illegal and blocked’ prediction-market platform and asked providers to make ‘reasonable efforts to not host or store or permit the access to any such platforms’ or risk losing safe-harbour protection under Section 79 of the IT Act; the letter is not published and is known through The Crypto Times (April 30, 2026) and iGaming Expert (May 19, 2026), only the latter of which says Kalshi was also named (secondary). This action targets intermediaries, not users. May 21, 2026: MeitY's blocking order to Polymarket under Section 69A, reported by ThePrint and Inc42 on May 21, 2026, citing an unnamed ministry official (secondary; this is the entry in the timeline below). May 22, 2026: polymarket.com reported unreachable on Indian internet providers by CoinDesk and Yogonet (secondary). Last week of May 2026: kalshi.com reported inaccessible on Indian providers by Business Standard on June 23, 2026 (secondary). July 29, 2026: an OGAI advisory to app stores, cloud providers, telecom and internet providers, banks, social media, streaming platforms and advertising agencies cited Sections 5, 6 and 7 of the Act without naming prediction markets or either platform, as reported by MediaNama on August 5, 2026 (secondary).
The block is an internet-provider-level block under Section 69A: the site was reported to fail to load on Indian networks. The orders and the Act are directed at operators, advertisers, payment processors and intermediaries such as internet providers, VPN providers, app stores and banks. gambling.com reported on August 6, 2026 that MeitY had told Parliament nearly 8,400 URLs had been blocked, more than 4,800 of them after the Act was passed (figures as of April 1, 2026); the parliamentary answer itself was not fetched. We found no lifted or reversed action as of September 26, 2026.
Court challenges. We found no court challenge by Polymarket, Kalshi or their users against the Indian blocks. The Act itself is under constitutional challenge in the Supreme Court of India in Head Digital Works v Union of India, T.C.(C) No. 133/2025, heard by a bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant with Justices Bagchi and Pancholi; petitions from the Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi High Courts were transferred to the Supreme Court on September 8, 2025. The petitions challenge the total prohibition in Section 5, and the delegation in Sections 3 to 5, under Articles 14, 19(1)(g) and 21 of the Constitution. A hearing was listed for August 5, 2026; the Supreme Court Observer tracker we rely on showed no judgment as of its last update on July 2, 2026, and we found no later ruling as of September 26, 2026. The case concerns the Act generally, not Polymarket or Kalshi.
The entries below are rendered from the same dated data as the main country table, newest first. Each row shows the date, the authority as it names itself, the type of action, the platform it concerns and the source with its type.
| Date | Authority | Action | Platform | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-05-21 | Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) | Blocking order | Polymarket | Source Secondary report Checked 2026-09-24 Also reported by: Secondary report · Secondary report No public MeitY/PIB document found (Section 69A orders are not published). |
| 2026-04-25 | Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) | Public warning or intervention | Polymarket | Source Secondary report Checked 2026-09-26 Also reported by: Secondary report Letter to VPN providers naming Polymarket as an illegal/blocked platform; the letter itself was not published. |
Public regulator, court and police actions concerning Polymarket and Kalshi in India, as of 2026-09-24. Not legal advice.
This section reports what the law and the authorities in India have said about people who take part in these markets, and any enforcement against users that has been made public. It describes; it doesn't advise.
The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 contains no section that penalises a user or player. Its offences, in Sections 5, 6, 7 and 9, are for offering an online money gaming service, advertising one, and facilitating payments for one. Law-firm and parliamentary-research summaries say the same: Trilegal's update of September 9, 2025 and PRS India's bill tracker both note that the Act does not address penalties for users. Section 7 does bar banks, financial institutions and other payment facilitators from processing payments for such services.
We found no prosecution, arrest or other enforcement against a Polymarket or Kalshi user in India. The Federal reported on May 3, 2026 that Tamil Nadu police were watching ‘illegal betting gangs’ around the state election, without documenting any action against a Polymarket user. MeitY's April 2026 letter to VPN providers, and its later blocking orders, are directed at platforms and intermediaries.
On tax, the Income Tax Department's page on winnings from online games says such income is taxable under Section 115BBJ of the Income-tax Act, 1961 at a flat rate of 30%, with 30% tax deducted at source under Section 194BA, for winnings from April 1, 2023 onward (official; the page is undated). It does not mention offshore platforms or prediction markets. Gains on virtual digital assets are separately taxed at 30% with 1% tax deducted at source, as reported by CoinDesk on May 22, 2026.
Polymarket ran markets on India's 2026 state elections. The Federal reported on May 3, 2026 that the Tamil Nadu market had seen roughly ₹189 crore in trading and the West Bengal market roughly ₹53 crore, with further markets on Kerala, Assam and Puducherry. Polymarket also keeps an Indian-elections topic page on its site.
India's domestic ‘opinion trading’ apps, including Probo, TradeX and MPL Opinio, went dark after the 2025 Act, before the offshore platforms were blocked, as reported by Inc42 on May 21, 2026. Separately, on May 27, 2026 the Supreme Court held in DGGI v Gameskraft (2026 INSC 595) that online money games are ‘betting and gambling’ for goods-and-services-tax purposes, taxed at 28% on face value; this is a tax ruling and does not concern the blocking orders.
PolyKal is a read-only research site, and it does not restrict access by country, including from India. Its public pages, including prices on both platforms, order-book depth, after-fee cost comparisons, the fee calculator, and large-trade and whale data, need no account. You don't need a VPN to use them.
Viewing public market data is not trading. PolyKal doesn't place orders, hold funds or give access to trading on either platform, and a restriction on Polymarket or Kalshi in India still applies to trading there. Polymarket's help center says that using a VPN to get around its restrictions violates its Terms of Use, and Kalshi's Member Agreement excludes people in its restricted jurisdictions; getting around a block can also break local law. PolyKal doesn't help anyone get around them.
Start with the compare page, the fee calculator or large trades, or read how Polymarket works and how Kalshi works.
India is one of 27 countries, plus the United States, that PolyKal tracks. The full availability table shows every country's status under each platform's rules and its regulator actions side by side, with the same dates and sources as this page, and its change log lists every edit we make.
Every entry is re-checked at least once a quarter, and sooner when a platform or regulator announces a change. The next scheduled full re-check is shown in the sidebar.
We don't answer that for you, and no court has ruled on it. What the record shows: the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 bans offering, advertising and processing payments for online money gaming services, including ones operated from outside India (Sections 1(2), 5, 6 and 7), and it has applied since May 1, 2026; MeitY named Polymarket an ‘illegal and blocked’ platform in an April 2026 letter to VPN providers, as reported by The Crypto Times, and, per reporting of May 21, 2026, ordered it blocked under Section 69A of the IT Act. The Act contains no penalty for users. Polymarket's own lists don't name India. Check the current law and the platform's current terms before doing anything.
India's IT ministry (MeitY) issued a blocking order against Polymarket under Section 69A of the IT Act, reported by ThePrint and Inc42 on May 21, 2026, and the site has been reported unreachable on Indian internet providers since May 22, 2026. The order text is not public, because Section 69A orders are confidential. Polymarket itself hasn't added India to its restriction lists (Help Center updated August 14, 2026), so the block comes from the government, not the platform.
Kalshi's own rules say no: its Member Agreement lists India as a restricted jurisdiction, an addition reported on June 17, 2026, so people located in India are excluded from trading under Kalshi's contract. Business Standard also reported that kalshi.com became inaccessible on Indian internet providers in the last week of May 2026, though no official blocking order against Kalshi has been published.
Because, per reports since May 22, 2026, Indian internet providers block it. MeitY issued a Section 69A blocking order against Polymarket, reported on May 21, 2026, under the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025, and since May 22, 2026 the site has shown a ‘This site can't be reached’ error on Indian networks. Polymarket's Help Center says using a VPN to get around restrictions violates its Terms of Use, and MeitY has reportedly asked VPN providers not to permit access to the platform; PolyKal doesn't help anyone get around a block.
Yes, on PolyKal. Its pages load from India without an account and show prices, order-book depth and after-fee comparisons for both platforms. Viewing data is not trading: PolyKal doesn't place orders or hold funds, and the blocks and restrictions described on this page still apply to trading on Polymarket and Kalshi.
No. Polymarket's help center says that using a VPN to get around its restrictions violates its Terms of Use, and Kalshi's Member Agreement excludes people in its restricted jurisdictions. Getting around a block can also break local law. You don't need a VPN to research these markets: PolyKal's prices, order books and fee calculator don't require one.
We re-check every country page at least once a quarter, and sooner when a platform or regulator announces a change; each rule and action on the page shows its own date and source. If you spot something out of date for India, email [email protected] with a link to the new rule or order.
Every statement on this page rests on the sources below. Platform rules were checked against Polymarket's and Kalshi's own pages on September 24, 2026; regulator, court and police actions were checked against the sources listed on September 24–26, 2026. Each source is marked as official, a platform document or a secondary report. Where only secondary reporting was available, we cite it and say so; where official sources conflict, we report both. We re-verify this page quarterly.
The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 (Act No. 32 of 2025), primary text on MeitY's website, assented August 22, 2025. Official.
Press Information Bureau: notification of the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Rules, 2026, April 22, 2026 (in force May 1, 2026). Official.
PRS India: bill tracker for the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025 (passage dates; no user penalties). Secondary. Trilegal update on the Act, September 9, 2025. Secondary.
ThePrint: MeitY blocking order to Polymarket, Kalshi order in process, May 21, 2026. Secondary report; the Section 69A order itself is not public. Inc42 on the same order, May 21, 2026. Secondary.
CoinDesk: Polymarket goes dark in India, May 22, 2026. Secondary. Yogonet: India blocks access to Polymarket, May 22, 2026. Secondary.
Asia Gaming Brief: IT Secretary's remarks on prediction markets and VPNs, April 23, 2026. Secondary. The Crypto Times: MeitY letter to VPN providers, April 30, 2026. Secondary. iGaming Expert on the same letter, May 19, 2026. Secondary.
Business Standard: Kalshi bars India users after government crackdown, June 23, 2026 (Member Agreement update dated June 17, 2026; kalshi.com inaccessible in late May). Secondary. Yogonet on the Kalshi update, June 23, 2026. Secondary.
MediaNama: OGAI advisory to intermediaries, August 5, 2026 (advisory dated July 29, 2026). Secondary. gambling.com: blocking orders and the 8,400-URL figure, August 6, 2026. Secondary.
Supreme Court Observer: Head Digital Works v Union of India, T.C.(C) No. 133/2025, case tracker last updated July 2, 2026. Secondary. Niyam: DGGI v Gameskraft (2026 INSC 595), May 27, 2026 ruling. Secondary.
Income Tax Department: winnings from online games, undated. Official. The Federal: election betting on Polymarket during the 2026 state elections, May 3, 2026. Secondary. Bloomberg: ‘Kalshi, Polymarket Defy India Ban on Online Betting Platforms’, May 18, 2026 (headline only; paywalled). Secondary.
Platform documents (all countries): Polymarket Help Center: Geographic restrictions (updated August 14, 2026), Polymarket developer docs: Geoblock (undated), Kalshi Member Agreement (undated; fetched September 24, 2026) and Kalshi Help Center: trading from outside the US (updated March 20, 2026).
PolyKal is an independent research tool. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by Polymarket or Kalshi. We report each platform's published rules and public regulator, court and police actions in India; we don't say whether trading is legal for you, and we don't help anyone get around a platform's restrictions. Last reviewed September 26, 2026. Not legal or financial advice.
Know of a newer rule, order or court decision for India? Email [email protected] with a link to it.
Kalshi's taker fee is 0.07 × contracts × price × (1 − price), times the series multiplier (1 by default) and rounded up to the next cent, so it peaks at 1.75¢ per contract at a 50¢ price. Resting (maker) orders are free on standard series and pay a fee only on the series Kalshi lists with maker fees.
Country-by-country rules, regulator actions and sources for Polymarket and Kalshi.
This is not legal advice, and we don't say whether trading is legal for you in India. We report what each platform's published rules say about India and the public regulator, court and police actions we could source, each with a date. Those rules change fast, so check the platform's current terms and the law in India before doing anything. ‘Not listed’ only means a platform's own list doesn't name India; it doesn't mean trading there is permitted.
Status under each platform's own published rules, and the most recent public action we could source, as of 2026-09-24.
Last public action: 2026-05-21 · Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) · Blocking order (Polymarket)
Source: Secondary report
Dated public actions on record: 2
This page keeps two things apart for India: what each platform's own published rules say, and what regulators, courts and police in India have publicly done. A platform's list is its own policy and a government order is the government's, so a country can be on one and not the other.
The status labels are the same as in the main table. Restricted means the platform's own list blocks trading from India. Close-only means existing users there can close positions but can't open new ones. Some regions means only named regions are restricted. Separate product means residents use a different, separately regulated product, as US residents do with the Polymarket US app. Not listed means the platform's published list doesn't name India; that is not the same as permitted, and a regulator may still block the site.
Polymarket publishes two official lists that don't fully match: its Help Center page (updated August 14, 2026) and its developer docs (undated). We follow the dated Help Center list and say where the developer docs differ. Kalshi statuses follow its Member Agreement as fetched on September 24, 2026; the agreement itself is undated.
Each action shows the authority as it names itself, what it did, the platform it concerns and the date: the date of the action where it was published, otherwise the date it was first reported. Every entry is marked Official, Platform document or Secondary report. Where only secondary reporting exists, we say ‘reported by’ and name the outlet; where official sources conflict, we report both.
‘No public action found’ means our searches found none, not that none exists. Nothing on this page says whether trading is legal for you: for that, check the platforms' current terms and the law in India.
Polymarket's Help Center page on geographic restrictions, updated August 14, 2026, lists 39 blocked countries and a separate close-only list. India is on neither. Its undated developer geoblock documentation doesn't name India either, so the two Polymarket lists agree on India. Under the labels used on this site, India is Not listed for Polymarket. That describes Polymarket's own policy only; it doesn't mean trading from India is permitted, and India's IT ministry is reported to have ordered the site blocked (below).
In practice the picture is different from the list. Since May 22, 2026, polymarket.com has been reported unreachable on Indian internet providers, showing a ‘This site can't be reached’ error, as reported by CoinDesk and Yogonet on that date. That block comes from the government side (a MeitY order under Section 69A, per those reports), not from Polymarket's own geoblock. We found no Polymarket blog post, help article or notice that mentions India, and no report of the Polymarket app being removed from Indian app stores as of September 26, 2026.
Polymarket's Help Center also says that using a VPN or similar tool to get around its geographic restrictions is prohibited under its Terms of Use. Separately, MeitY's April 2026 letter to VPN providers (see the regulator section) named Polymarket as an ‘illegal and blocked’ platform, as reported by The Crypto Times. PolyKal describes no way around either.
Kalshi's Member Agreement (Section VI, ‘Restricted Jurisdictions’, undated; fetched September 24, 2026) names India. Under this site's labels, India is Restricted for Kalshi. India was not on Kalshi's first international restricted list in its Exchange Notice of October 23, 2025, nor on the updated notice of November 4, 2025. Business Standard reported on June 23, 2026 that Kalshi updated the agreement on June 17, 2026 to add India, with wording that users ‘domiciled in, organised in or located in India are prohibited from trading event contracts on the platform’; Yogonet carried the same report on June 23, 2026. Kalshi's help center (updated March 20, 2026) says international trading is subject to the Member Agreement.
Whether Kalshi also received a government blocking order is only partly documented. On May 21, 2026, ThePrint quoted an unnamed MeitY official saying the ministry had issued an order to Polymarket and was ‘in the process of issuing an order to Kalshi as soon as Friday’ (May 22, 2026). Business Standard reported on June 23, 2026 that kalshi.com had become inaccessible across Indian internet providers in the last week of May 2026, and gambling.com reported on August 6, 2026 that blocking orders had been issued to both platforms. No official document confirms either order, because Section 69A orders are not published. Earlier, Bloomberg's May 18, 2026 headline read ‘Kalshi, Polymarket Defy India Ban on Online Betting Platforms’.
The authority that blocks websites in India is the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), acting under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000. Section 69A orders are confidential by rule, so no primary text of an order against Polymarket or Kalshi is public; every entry below rests on press reporting unless marked otherwise. The substantive law is the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 (Act No. 32 of 2025), passed by the Lok Sabha on August 20, 2025 and the Rajya Sabha on August 21, 2025, and assented to and gazetted on August 22, 2025. Its rules were notified on April 22, 2026 and came into force on May 1, 2026, creating the Online Gaming Authority of India (OGAI).
Provisions of the 2025 Act that the reporting cites: Section 1(2) extends it to online money gaming services ‘operated from outside the territory of India’; Section 2(1)(g) defines an ‘online money game’ as one where a user pays fees or deposits money ‘in expectation of winning’, whether it involves skill, chance or both; Section 5 prohibits offering such services, Section 6 prohibits advertising them, and Section 7 prohibits banks, financial institutions and ‘any other person facilitating financial transactions’ from processing payments for them. Section 9 sets penalties of up to 3 years' imprisonment or a fine of up to ₹1 crore for offering, up to 2 years or ₹50 lakh for advertising, and up to 3 years or ₹1 crore for facilitating payments, rising to 3–5 years and ₹1–2 crore for repeat offences. Section 10 makes offences under Sections 5 and 7 cognizable and non-bailable, and Section 14 makes content relating to online money gaming services ‘liable to be blocked’ under the IT Act. The primary text is on MeitY's website.
Public actions, in order. April 23, 2026: IT Secretary S. Krishnan said prediction markets fall under the Online Gaming Act and that VPN access ‘is a slightly tricky issue and we are seeing how we can intervene’, as reported by Asia Gaming Brief (secondary). April 25, 2026: a MeitY letter to VPN service providers named Polymarket as an ‘illegal and blocked’ prediction-market platform and asked providers to make ‘reasonable efforts to not host or store or permit the access to any such platforms’ or risk losing safe-harbour protection under Section 79 of the IT Act; the letter is not published and is known through The Crypto Times (April 30, 2026) and iGaming Expert (May 19, 2026), only the latter of which says Kalshi was also named (secondary). This action targets intermediaries, not users. May 21, 2026: MeitY's blocking order to Polymarket under Section 69A, reported by ThePrint and Inc42 on May 21, 2026, citing an unnamed ministry official (secondary; this is the entry in the timeline below). May 22, 2026: polymarket.com reported unreachable on Indian internet providers by CoinDesk and Yogonet (secondary). Last week of May 2026: kalshi.com reported inaccessible on Indian providers by Business Standard on June 23, 2026 (secondary). July 29, 2026: an OGAI advisory to app stores, cloud providers, telecom and internet providers, banks, social media, streaming platforms and advertising agencies cited Sections 5, 6 and 7 of the Act without naming prediction markets or either platform, as reported by MediaNama on August 5, 2026 (secondary).
The block is an internet-provider-level block under Section 69A: the site was reported to fail to load on Indian networks. The orders and the Act are directed at operators, advertisers, payment processors and intermediaries such as internet providers, VPN providers, app stores and banks. gambling.com reported on August 6, 2026 that MeitY had told Parliament nearly 8,400 URLs had been blocked, more than 4,800 of them after the Act was passed (figures as of April 1, 2026); the parliamentary answer itself was not fetched. We found no lifted or reversed action as of September 26, 2026.
Court challenges. We found no court challenge by Polymarket, Kalshi or their users against the Indian blocks. The Act itself is under constitutional challenge in the Supreme Court of India in Head Digital Works v Union of India, T.C.(C) No. 133/2025, heard by a bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant with Justices Bagchi and Pancholi; petitions from the Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi High Courts were transferred to the Supreme Court on September 8, 2025. The petitions challenge the total prohibition in Section 5, and the delegation in Sections 3 to 5, under Articles 14, 19(1)(g) and 21 of the Constitution. A hearing was listed for August 5, 2026; the Supreme Court Observer tracker we rely on showed no judgment as of its last update on July 2, 2026, and we found no later ruling as of September 26, 2026. The case concerns the Act generally, not Polymarket or Kalshi.
The entries below are rendered from the same dated data as the main country table, newest first. Each row shows the date, the authority as it names itself, the type of action, the platform it concerns and the source with its type.
Public regulator, court and police actions concerning Polymarket and Kalshi in India, as of 2026-09-24. Not legal advice.
This section reports what the law and the authorities in India have said about people who take part in these markets, and any enforcement against users that has been made public. It describes; it doesn't advise.
The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 contains no section that penalises a user or player. Its offences, in Sections 5, 6, 7 and 9, are for offering an online money gaming service, advertising one, and facilitating payments for one. Law-firm and parliamentary-research summaries say the same: Trilegal's update of September 9, 2025 and PRS India's bill tracker both note that the Act does not address penalties for users. Section 7 does bar banks, financial institutions and other payment facilitators from processing payments for such services.
We found no prosecution, arrest or other enforcement against a Polymarket or Kalshi user in India. The Federal reported on May 3, 2026 that Tamil Nadu police were watching ‘illegal betting gangs’ around the state election, without documenting any action against a Polymarket user. MeitY's April 2026 letter to VPN providers, and its later blocking orders, are directed at platforms and intermediaries.
On tax, the Income Tax Department's page on winnings from online games says such income is taxable under Section 115BBJ of the Income-tax Act, 1961 at a flat rate of 30%, with 30% tax deducted at source under Section 194BA, for winnings from April 1, 2023 onward (official; the page is undated). It does not mention offshore platforms or prediction markets. Gains on virtual digital assets are separately taxed at 30% with 1% tax deducted at source, as reported by CoinDesk on May 22, 2026.
Polymarket ran markets on India's 2026 state elections. The Federal reported on May 3, 2026 that the Tamil Nadu market had seen roughly ₹189 crore in trading and the West Bengal market roughly ₹53 crore, with further markets on Kerala, Assam and Puducherry. Polymarket also keeps an Indian-elections topic page on its site.
India's domestic ‘opinion trading’ apps, including Probo, TradeX and MPL Opinio, went dark after the 2025 Act, before the offshore platforms were blocked, as reported by Inc42 on May 21, 2026. Separately, on May 27, 2026 the Supreme Court held in DGGI v Gameskraft (2026 INSC 595) that online money games are ‘betting and gambling’ for goods-and-services-tax purposes, taxed at 28% on face value; this is a tax ruling and does not concern the blocking orders.
PolyKal is a read-only research site, and it does not restrict access by country, including from India. Its public pages, including prices on both platforms, order-book depth, after-fee cost comparisons, the fee calculator, and large-trade and whale data, need no account. You don't need a VPN to use them.
Viewing public market data is not trading. PolyKal doesn't place orders, hold funds or give access to trading on either platform, and a restriction on Polymarket or Kalshi in India still applies to trading there. Polymarket's help center says that using a VPN to get around its restrictions violates its Terms of Use, and Kalshi's Member Agreement excludes people in its restricted jurisdictions; getting around a block can also break local law. PolyKal doesn't help anyone get around them.
Start with the compare page, the fee calculator or large trades, or read how Polymarket works and how Kalshi works.
India is one of 27 countries, plus the United States, that PolyKal tracks. The full availability table shows every country's status under each platform's rules and its regulator actions side by side, with the same dates and sources as this page, and its change log lists every edit we make.
Every entry is re-checked at least once a quarter, and sooner when a platform or regulator announces a change. The next scheduled full re-check is shown in the sidebar.
We don't answer that for you, and no court has ruled on it. What the record shows: the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 bans offering, advertising and processing payments for online money gaming services, including ones operated from outside India (Sections 1(2), 5, 6 and 7), and it has applied since May 1, 2026; MeitY named Polymarket an ‘illegal and blocked’ platform in an April 2026 letter to VPN providers, as reported by The Crypto Times, and, per reporting of May 21, 2026, ordered it blocked under Section 69A of the IT Act. The Act contains no penalty for users. Polymarket's own lists don't name India. Check the current law and the platform's current terms before doing anything.
India's IT ministry (MeitY) issued a blocking order against Polymarket under Section 69A of the IT Act, reported by ThePrint and Inc42 on May 21, 2026, and the site has been reported unreachable on Indian internet providers since May 22, 2026. The order text is not public, because Section 69A orders are confidential. Polymarket itself hasn't added India to its restriction lists (Help Center updated August 14, 2026), so the block comes from the government, not the platform.
Kalshi's own rules say no: its Member Agreement lists India as a restricted jurisdiction, an addition reported on June 17, 2026, so people located in India are excluded from trading under Kalshi's contract. Business Standard also reported that kalshi.com became inaccessible on Indian internet providers in the last week of May 2026, though no official blocking order against Kalshi has been published.
Because, per reports since May 22, 2026, Indian internet providers block it. MeitY issued a Section 69A blocking order against Polymarket, reported on May 21, 2026, under the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025, and since May 22, 2026 the site has shown a ‘This site can't be reached’ error on Indian networks. Polymarket's Help Center says using a VPN to get around restrictions violates its Terms of Use, and MeitY has reportedly asked VPN providers not to permit access to the platform; PolyKal doesn't help anyone get around a block.
Yes, on PolyKal. Its pages load from India without an account and show prices, order-book depth and after-fee comparisons for both platforms. Viewing data is not trading: PolyKal doesn't place orders or hold funds, and the blocks and restrictions described on this page still apply to trading on Polymarket and Kalshi.
No. Polymarket's help center says that using a VPN to get around its restrictions violates its Terms of Use, and Kalshi's Member Agreement excludes people in its restricted jurisdictions. Getting around a block can also break local law. You don't need a VPN to research these markets: PolyKal's prices, order books and fee calculator don't require one.
We re-check every country page at least once a quarter, and sooner when a platform or regulator announces a change; each rule and action on the page shows its own date and source. If you spot something out of date for India, email [email protected] with a link to the new rule or order.
Every statement on this page rests on the sources below. Platform rules were checked against Polymarket's and Kalshi's own pages on September 24, 2026; regulator, court and police actions were checked against the sources listed on September 24–26, 2026. Each source is marked as official, a platform document or a secondary report. Where only secondary reporting was available, we cite it and say so; where official sources conflict, we report both. We re-verify this page quarterly.
The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 (Act No. 32 of 2025), primary text on MeitY's website, assented August 22, 2025. Official.
Press Information Bureau: notification of the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Rules, 2026, April 22, 2026 (in force May 1, 2026). Official.
PRS India: bill tracker for the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025 (passage dates; no user penalties). Secondary. Trilegal update on the Act, September 9, 2025. Secondary.
ThePrint: MeitY blocking order to Polymarket, Kalshi order in process, May 21, 2026. Secondary report; the Section 69A order itself is not public. Inc42 on the same order, May 21, 2026. Secondary.
CoinDesk: Polymarket goes dark in India, May 22, 2026. Secondary. Yogonet: India blocks access to Polymarket, May 22, 2026. Secondary.
Asia Gaming Brief: IT Secretary's remarks on prediction markets and VPNs, April 23, 2026. Secondary. The Crypto Times: MeitY letter to VPN providers, April 30, 2026. Secondary. iGaming Expert on the same letter, May 19, 2026. Secondary.
Business Standard: Kalshi bars India users after government crackdown, June 23, 2026 (Member Agreement update dated June 17, 2026; kalshi.com inaccessible in late May). Secondary. Yogonet on the Kalshi update, June 23, 2026. Secondary.
MediaNama: OGAI advisory to intermediaries, August 5, 2026 (advisory dated July 29, 2026). Secondary. gambling.com: blocking orders and the 8,400-URL figure, August 6, 2026. Secondary.
Supreme Court Observer: Head Digital Works v Union of India, T.C.(C) No. 133/2025, case tracker last updated July 2, 2026. Secondary. Niyam: DGGI v Gameskraft (2026 INSC 595), May 27, 2026 ruling. Secondary.
Income Tax Department: winnings from online games, undated. Official. The Federal: election betting on Polymarket during the 2026 state elections, May 3, 2026. Secondary. Bloomberg: ‘Kalshi, Polymarket Defy India Ban on Online Betting Platforms’, May 18, 2026 (headline only; paywalled). Secondary.
Platform documents (all countries): Polymarket Help Center: Geographic restrictions (updated August 14, 2026), Polymarket developer docs: Geoblock (undated), Kalshi Member Agreement (undated; fetched September 24, 2026) and Kalshi Help Center: trading from outside the US (updated March 20, 2026).
PolyKal is an independent research tool. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by Polymarket or Kalshi. We report each platform's published rules and public regulator, court and police actions in India; we don't say whether trading is legal for you, and we don't help anyone get around a platform's restrictions. Last reviewed September 26, 2026. Not legal or financial advice.
Know of a newer rule, order or court decision for India? Email [email protected] with a link to it.