Kalshi blocks India users as Europe vows action on markets

Kalshi updated its member agreement on June 17 to bar anyone domiciled, organized in, or located in India from trading event contracts. The change added India to a list that now restricts access from 55 countries and territories and reverses the company’s October 2025 plan to expand into more than 140 countries.

Kalshi had been onboarding Indian customers into mid-May. Kalshi’s legal counsel Valeria Vouterakou provided a statement saying the company had contacted the Indian government, had not received an order to shut down, and would comply with any government requests ‘should they make them.’

India’s Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act 2025 took effect on May 1 and broadened restrictions on online gambling. Analysts have concluded that prediction markets fall within the statute’s scope. The law includes criminal penalties, which can include imprisonment for people who facilitate, promote, or finance illegal online gambling. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology issued an advisory on April 25 telling VPN providers and other intermediaries not to enable access to blocked prediction market and betting platforms. One prediction market was blocked by Indian authorities around May 21; Kalshi’s restriction followed in the weeks after that enforcement.

On the same day Kalshi amended its terms, gambling regulators from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland signed a joint declaration to take action against prediction markets operating without local licences. Regulators listed concerns including weak betting or session limits, inadequate identity and age verification, risks of insider trading, and potential gambling harm among younger users. The declaration said enforcement measures could include formal warnings, fines, advertising restrictions and blocking at the internet service provider level. Several countries named in the declaration already use ISP-level blocking against some prediction market platforms.

Kalshi operates under a Commodity Futures Trading Commission licence in the United States. That federal authorisation does not prevent other countries from applying their own laws or enforcement. The June 17 terms allow Kalshi to expand its restricted-jurisdiction list in response to legal, regulatory, or business conditions.

Other operators have adjusted after the Indian law took effect. One gaming company withdrew paid contests from its skill-gaming unit after May 1; that business had been expected to generate about $200 million in revenue for 2026.