Polymarket’s success a warning shot to Australian bookmakers
Bets about the Iran war made on Polymarket highlight how its tech could revolutionise sports betting, with one large regulatory obstacle to overcome.
The mania for decentralised sports and politics betting website Polymarket accelerated this week as a flood of bets were placed on the US bombing Iran last weekend.
Those bets — worth about $1.2 million — paid out big profits to anonymous gamblers, adding to the controversy surrounding the site, which operates a blockchain-based marketplace where users wager against each other on the outcome of events, including wars.
Crypto advocates - often allergic to regulation - claim Polymarket revolutionises consumer-to-consumer sports betting by cutting out the traditional bookmaker in a consumer-to-enterprise model such as that of the TAB, Bet365 or Sportsbet.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.The Polymarket concept theoretically allows for better odds than the notoriously uneven ones betting against the house or traditional bookmakers.
For Australians the roadblock today is that gambling regulator the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) banned the website in August 2025 on the basis it’s unlicensed and therefore illegal.
In turn the site is supposed to be blocked by internet service providers, but there’s theoretically little to stop tech-savvy locals using a virtual private network (VPN) to access and gamble on it, even if they risk breaking the law.
“While it is not prohibited for Australians to access illegally-provided online gambling sites, the ACMA conducts regular consumer awareness campaigns discouraging Australians from using these sites and warning of the risks involved,” ACMA said in a statement.
Controversy has swirled around the site’s breakneck success. A gambler in possession of inside information (about a takeover offer for a company, or imminent government policy announcement) can use the infomation to anonymously place bets on the outcome and profit.
In Australia using inside information to buy shares in a company ahead of a takeover offer is a serious criminal offence under The Corporations Act with up to 15 years’ jail, but local lawmakers and regulators now face numerous challenges in regulating decentralised prediction markets.
For now ACMA said it’s position is that it’s an offence under the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 to provide or advertise unlicensed gambling services.
Future of betting
While prediction markets are illegal in Australia for now, their overseas success is perhaps setting up a future battle between local bookmakers and the decentralised prediction market industry to control lucrative sports gambling.
The powerful local gambling industry is sure to want the Government, ACMA, and lobbyists in its corner when it comes to stopping the likes of Polymarket from being able to offer sports betting markets on the likes of AFL, NRL, or even national horse race the Melbourne Cup.
In the US, where Polymarket has soared in popularity, the share prices of listed US bookmakers Flutter and DraftKings have both sunk more than 50 per cent in 12 months.
The other notable aspect on the rise of Polymarket is that the much-hyped blockchain technology may have finally delivered some utility to the general public in the real world.
Allowing anyone to bet against each other (at potentially better odds than those offered by bookmakers) arguably is a useful service to ordinary people.
Until Polymarket’s arrival, the only other use for blockchain technology was in blowing up synthetic asset price bubbles as the likes of Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, and thousands of cryptocurrencies were pumped higher on blockchain-based ledgers before normally crashing back to earth.
In these instances the blockchain had debatable benefits other than for cryptocurrency early adopters or insiders who sold them to later adopters at a profit.
Moreover, the blockchain-traded cryptocurrencies have never worked as money to buy goods and services, principally as they’re too volatile in price to be a stable unit of account.
As an example, almost nobody would agree to accept their next year’s salary today in a cryptocurrency they thought could crash 90 per cent in price.
However, it is possible, in the future, that blockchain-based tokens or stablecoins pegged at a fixed exchange rate to the US or Australian dollar will allow people to trade digital assets such as stocks or commodities with no unique role for bank accounts or today’s money to buy ‘stuff’.
