Polymarket is seeking approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to make its flagship prediction market available to US users again.
The company has discussed lifting its ban on U.S.-based traders with CFTC officials in recent weeks, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing sources familiar with the talks. The ban has been in place since Polymarket reached an agreement with the agency in 2022 and moved its main exchange abroad.
The CFTC cleared a US-only standalone Polymarket platform last November after the company acquired a registered exchange. That site has not yet fully launched.
Prediction markets allow users to trade contracts tied to future events, such as elections, sports games, or economic data. These markets have come under increasing scrutiny from several states, which argue that they operate as unlicensed gaming operations.
The CFTC would need to vote before it could remove the US block on Polymarkt. That process may be easier now because four seats on the commission are vacant, leaving Chairman Michael Selig as the only sitting commissioner.
Selig has argued in the past that states do not have the ability to control prediction markets, whose authority falls under the purview of the CFTC.
The talks also come after authorities accused a soldier of using a virtual private network (VPN) to access the Polymarket international exchange and earn more than $400,000 from transactions based on classified information.
Polymarket declined to comment.
