Indonesia Polymarket Blocked in Indonesia Over Online Gambling Ban access to Polymarket, labeling the prediction-market a form of online gambling soon after a bet on the possible early end of President Prabowo Subianto’s tenure circulated widely on social media.
The government will also track social media accounts promoting the platform, the Communications and Digital Ministry said in a statement Friday. The ministry said platforms facilitating wagers on specific event outcomes remain classified as gambling, even when packaged as “prediction markets.”
“The government will not allow any form of online gambling in Indonesia,” the ministry said in its statement.
The wager was launched May 21, the day after Prabowo announced plans to tighten government control of the country’s major commodities exports. That plan, which caught investors, traders and even some of his own officials by surprise, resurfaced concerns over the credibility and transparency of policymaking under the former general.
Polymarket didn’t respond to emailed request for comment.
🚨 NEW POLYMARKET: Prabowo Subianto out as President of Indonesia by...?https://t.co/mqy9I4mmnq
— Polymarket (@Polymarket) May 21, 2026
Prediction markets from Polymarket and Kalshi Inc. have become irritants to governments and regulators as they’ve boomed in popularity, both for crossing lines related to gambling as well as amplifying politically sensitive issues.
In India, for instance, they’ve continued to sign up customers despite regulator warnings that they’re illegal. Singapore and Brazil have banned them, while Taiwan, Thailand, China and Japan have implemented access limitations.
While the US has no such restrictions, Polymarket has still attracted scrutiny. An Army special forces master sergeant last month was charged with using the platform to trade on classified information about the capture of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, bets that authorities say netted $400,000.
The Prabowo wager, which Polymarket promoted on X, offered three dates for when he would be out as president — end of May, June or December. The wagers, with the end-December bet seeing the highest probability at 12%, had garnered more than $44,000 worth of trading volume, according to the website.
Prabowo’s term runs until October 2029.
Transactions linked to online gambling totaled about 286 trillion rupiah ($16 billion) last year, according to a Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center report, despite a national ban on gambling.
Since taking office in October 2024, Prabowo has intensified a crackdown on online betting, including blocking access to about 3.4 million websites and digital content deemed to facilitate betting activity, according to government data.
