The authorities in Singapore have labelled Polymarket as an illegal gambling site. It blocked it within the city-state. Singaporeans are attempting to visit the crypto-betting platform, as shown in a notice from the country’s Gambling Regulatory Authority (GRA).
Cobo Global’s Vice President of Investment and Custody posted on X. The post was translated from Mandarin. It highlighted a new notice on the Polymarket.com domain. The notice stated that Polymarket is officially classified as a gambling website in Singapore. To place a bet, you must go through a state-owned gambling company; otherwise, you risk fines and imprisonment.
Singapore indeed imposes a penalty of SGD 10,000 or prison time of up to six months, or both, on anyone convicted of gambling on any unlicensed platform. The penalty for unlicensed gambling operators is SGD 500,000. This is along with imprisonment of up to seven years. On the other hand, according to the GRA, repeat offenders face a steeper penalty of SGD 700,000 with prison time of up to 10 years.
The GRA clarified on its website that it is unlawful for anyone to provide unlicensed remote gambling services in or from Singapore. This also applies to providing services from outside Singapore to people in Singapore.
Since January 1 of this year, Singapore has authorized its police force to block access to unlawful remote gambling services. This includes blocking the advertising of such services and payment transactions.
GRA states that Singaporean authorities have blocked more than 3,800 gambling websites and 145,000 transactions amounting to SGD 37 million since 2015.
In the South Asian country, the only legal gambling platform is Singapore Pools. It offers a variety of gambling services. This includes lottery, sports betting, and horse racing betting. Nonetheless, it lacks political event contracts that contributed to the popularity of Polymarket.
