Norway's gambling regulator has moved to block prediction-market platforms Polymarket and Kalshi from Norwegian internet users, notifying the two companies alongside 60 other unlicensed operators that their websites face DNS blocking, according to two industry reports published Oct 9 and Oct 12 citing the regulator's announcements.
The Norwegian Gambling Authority, Lotteritilsynet, told the 62 companies they have until October 15 to respond before it issues final blocking decisions, iGamingToday reported on Oct 9. Director Atle Hamar confirmed the planned action to Norwegian media and told broadcaster TV 2 that the notification step is a legal requirement before the regulator can formally decide, adding that in practice the authority has already reached its conclusion.
If the orders are confirmed, Norwegian users attempting to open the affected sites would see a blocking notice with an explanation from the authority, according to iGamingToday. The measure would add to 238 gambling websites already blocked in the country, a figure TV 2 cited in its coverage of the regulator's enforcement campaign.
Hamar singled out prediction markets as a particular concern, iGamingToday reported. He told Norwegian media that the way these markets operate can advantage people with access to information ordinary users lack, and pointed to research showing that a small group of users accounts for most winnings on platforms of this type. "Those who have inside information will always win, and an ordinary consumer in Norway will generally not sit on inside information," Hamar said. "It's a perfect system for insider trading. And we don't want that, which is why we notify DNS blocking."
Norway runs a state-controlled gambling market in which state-owned Norsk Tipping holds exclusive rights to most major forms of gambling, including online casino and sports betting, according to Correct Casinos. Unlike open-licensing jurisdictions, Norway generally does not let international operators obtain standard licenses to compete, and the regulator can block websites and restrict payments against unlicensed operators targeting Norwegian consumers.
The Norwegian action extends a growing list of European restrictions on prediction markets. Polymarket is already unavailable in France, Denmark, Ireland, Italy and Portugal, iGamingToday noted, and the company said on Oct 5 it plans to challenge the Netherlands gambling regulator's classification in administrative court after a 420,000 euro enforcement penalty, according to The Cryptonomist. Polymarket has also said it will contest France's gambling regulator in court while arguing its contracts should be supervised as financial products rather than gambling.
Analysis: Norway's framing matters more than its market size. By naming insider trading as the motive rather than consumer protection alone, Lotteritilsynet is handing other European regulators a second, harder-to-dismiss rationale for blocking prediction markets, one that lands uncomfortably close to the questions Kalshi already faces at home about suspicious political trading. The October 15 response deadline also sets a near-term test of whether either platform will fight a Nordic regulator in court, as Polymarket is doing in the Netherlands and France, or quietly accept another European blackout.
What to watch: whether the final blocking decisions, expected shortly after October 15, trigger payment-blocking orders alongside the DNS measures, and whether Norway's insider-trading argument gets picked up by regulators in other state-monopoly markets watching this case.