Romania’s National Office for Gambling (ONJN) has announced that Polymarket, the current biggest prediction market, will be placed on its blacklist for unauthorized websites due to its continued gambling operations without a license.

ONJN President Vlad-Cristian Soare made the following statement:

“The decision to include Polymarket on the blacklist is not related to technology, but to the law.”

He has also stated that if you are betting on a future result with money, then it needs to be regulated, regardless of whether it’s with lei or crypto.

Soare has also gone on to state that the ONJN will not let the blockchain become a tool for illegal betting.

Defining the Difference

While Polymarket has been described as an “event trading platform”, due to the ability it grants for people to make bets against one another using funds to make predictions, the ONJN has described it as a tool for counterparty betting.

The ONJN made the following statement:

“Accepting the idea that a ‘counterparty betting’ system can be called ‘trading’ would create a dangerous precedent.”

The regulator has warned that if this is allowed, others could bypass gambling or capital market regulations by claiming that counterparty betting is actually the same as exchanging stocks.

Betting on Elections

The regulator has brought forth the recent prediction on Bucharest’s new Mayor as an example of the effect Polymarket has had on elections in Romania.

The prize pool of said prediction has been noted to have crossed over $16 million

The prediction has yet to reach its conclusion.

One of the electoral predictions in Romania earlier this year has been noted to have hit a volume of over $370 million.

Bans Worldwide

Romania isn’t the first country that has taken action against Polymarket.

It had been temporarily banned in the US,  due to a CFTC fine; however, following the acquisition of QCX, a holder of a Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) license, through which Polymarket will be able to resume operations.

Last year, France revealed plans to ban Polymarket following an investigation into their legal compliance after the $35 billion volume reached during the presidential election.