Kalshi Blocks Indian Users in Expanding Jurisdiction Crackdown
Prediction market Kalshi has added India to its restricted list, now spanning 55 countries, following warnings from Indian regulators.
Kalshi just shut the door on Indian users. The US-based prediction market platform added India to its growing roster of 55 restricted jurisdictions, cutting off access for one of the world's largest retail-trading populations.
This move didn't come out of nowhere. Indian authorities had already put pressure on VPN providers, warning them to stop helping users tunnel into platforms like Kalshi. When regulators go after the back doors, the platforms tend to follow up by locking the front door too. That's exactly what happened here.
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For traders in India, this is a real blow. Kalshi lets you trade on real-world event outcomes — elections, economic data, you name it — and that kind of product has massive appeal in a market hungry for alternative instruments. Now that access is officially off the table, Indian users are left on the outside looking in.
The broader pattern is worth watching. Fifty-five restricted jurisdictions is not a small number. As Kalshi scales in the US and looks to legitimize prediction markets as an asset class, it's simultaneously drawing hard lines around where it will and won't operate. Regulatory compliance is clearly a priority, even when it means walking away from huge potential user bases.
If you're trading from a compliant jurisdiction, this is mostly noise. But if you're tracking where prediction markets are heading globally, Kalshi's expanding restricted list is a signal that regulatory geography matters more than ever in this space. Continue reading at Cointelegraph.