Czech Republic Orders ISPs To Block Kalshi Within 15 Days
The Czech Ministry of Finance has added prediction market operator Kalshi to the country's list of unauthorised internet games, setting a 15-day deadline for internet service providers to block domestic access to the site.
The ministry confirmed on September 30, 2026, that Kalshi.com had been entered onto the register of unlicensed operators maintained under the Czech Republic's gambling control law.
Under that law, internet service providers are legally required to block any domain added to the list within 15 days, meaning Czech users should lose direct access to Kalshi by mid-October 2026.
Part Of Wider European Pattern
The Czech move follows a similar blacklisting of the rival platform Polymarket less than three months earlier, making the Czech Republic one of the first European Union member states to take direct technical action against both leading US prediction market platforms in the same year.
Prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket let users trade contracts tied to the outcome of real-world events, a product category regulators increasingly treat the same way as traditional betting sites, from elections to economic data releases.
Regulators across Europe have increasingly treated these products as a form of unlicensed betting rather than as financial derivatives, since payouts depend on the outcome of an event rather than on a traded security.
No Licence Under Czech Gambling Law
Kalshi operates in the Czech Republic without a licence under the country's gambling act, which requires any operator offering games of chance to domestic consumers to hold local authorisation or operate under a recognised EU passporting arrangement.
The Ministry of Finance's blocking register exists specifically to provide the regulator with a technical enforcement tool against operators that fall outside the framework, rather than relying solely on fines or court action.
Kalshi has expanded rapidly outside the United States over the past year, pitching itself to new users as a regulated alternative to traditional betting products.
That expansion has repeatedly run into friction with gambling regulators who dispute the platform's characterisation of its contracts as financial instruments rather than wagers.
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What Happens Next
With the clock now running on the 15-day order, the practical effect for Czech users will depend on how quickly domestic ISPs implement the block and whether Kalshi pursues any legal challenge to its inclusion on the register, as other blacklisted operators have done in the past.
Betting and prediction market operators watching the Czech and wider EU markets will be looking to see whether other national regulators follow with similar blocking orders in the coming weeks.
The Czech register of unauthorised internet games is a technical enforcement tool, not a one-off sanction: once a domain is added, the ISP blocking obligation applies automatically and continues to apply unless the operator later secures a licence or successfully challenges its inclusion through the Czech courts.
That makes it a faster route to restricting access than many other EU states' enforcement options, which more often rely on fines against the operator rather than direct technical blocking at the ISP level.
