The “world's largest prediction market” has had to sit out the recent gold rush in the United States for regulated betting on elections and sports via event contracts, but that time in the penalty box appears to be coming to an end.
- Polymarket is aiming to re-enter the U.S. legally by acquiring CFTC-licensed QCX LLC and QC Clearing LLC for $112 million.
- Polymarket settled with the CFTC in 2022 and was not supposed to serve U.S. customers, but it continued offshore operations, amassing billions in trading volume, including over $3.6 billion for its 2024 presidential election market.
- With U.S. law enforcement investigations now closed and user demand still strong, Polymarket is set to challenge regulated competitors like Kalshi and Crypto.com as it reestablishes itself in the growing U.S. prediction market.
New York-based Polymarket announced on Monday that it has struck a deal to buy the holding company of a Commodity Futures Trading Commission-licensed derivatives exchange, QCX LLC, and clearinghouse, QC Clearing LLC, for $112 million.
“The acquisition of the QCEX entities paves the way for U.S. users to access Polymarket in the near future within a fully regulated, U.S.-compliant framework,” the crypto-based prediction market operator said in a press release. “As prediction markets continue to gain mainstream relevance, Polymarket remains the go-to platform for understanding what the world is thinking - and where it's headed.”
Monday’s announcement means the current players in the world of regulated election and sports betting via event contracts could be about to face serious and legitimate competition in the U.S. from the biggest of them all.
Those CFTC-regulated event contracts have been increasing in number and popularity in the U.S., particularly since last year’s presidential election. And the recent expansion into sports event contracts, while contested by state gaming regulators, have helped push prediction market popularity to a new high.
8 months ago, on election night, we were on top of the world after Polymarket called the election.
— Shayne Coplan 🦅 (@shayne_coplan) July 15, 2025
8 days later, the FBI broke down my door at 6am and took all my computers and phones, looking for anything that could imply foul play.
While traumatic, it etched the story of… pic.twitter.com/EOfJQTCzMY
Polymarket, though, has not been supposed to serve U.S. customers since early 2022, when it reached a settlement with the CFTC “for offering off-exchange event-based binary options contracts and [a] failure to obtain designation as a designated contract market (DCM) or registration as a swap execution facility (SEF).”
However, since then, Polymarket has continued to operate as an offshore prediction market platform, facilitating significant wagering on all kinds of events. That has included betting on U.S. presidential election odds and plenty of sports.
The volume reported by Polymarket also suggests that it is indeed the biggest of all the prediction markets, CFTC-regulated or otherwise. Its 2024 presidential election market, for example, attracted more than $3.6 billion in trading volume; the CFTC-regulated Kalshi reported approximately $536 million in volume for a similar market.
Polymarket said in its press release on Monday that its users have already made about $6 billion in bets on its platform in the first half of 2025 alone.
Welcome back, Coplan
Yet Polymarket has existed in a weird place since 2022.
While based in the U.S., it has been restricted from serving U.S. customers. In the meantime, Kalshi, Crypto.com, and others have been rushing to build up their federally regulated prediction market businesses in the U.S. over the past few years.
It was then reported last week that the U.S. Justice Department and CFTC had ended investigations of Polymarket without bringing charges. Those investigations were begun last year and were probing whether Polymarket had been taking bets from U.S. residents despite the 2022 settlement with the CFTC.
"Polymarket is the largest prediction market globally and has become synonymous with understanding the probability of current events," said Shayne Coplan, founder and CEO of Polymarket, in Monday’s release. "Demand is greater than ever - not just in user growth and trading volume, but in how mainstream audiences are turning to Polymarket to separate signal from noise, bias, and speculation. Now, with the acquisition of QCEX, we are laying the foundation to bring Polymarket home - re-entering the US as a fully regulated and compliant platform that will allow Americans to trade their opinions."
More to come…
