On Friday, May 22, 2026, Indonesia’s Communications and Digital Ministry (Komdigi) confirmed it had blocked access to Polymarket, labeling the platform a form of online gambling. The move came days after a market on the possible early end of President Prabowo Subianto’s tenure spread across Indonesian social media.
The ministry said it would also track social media accounts promoting the platform, and that services 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.” — Communications and Digital Ministry
Indonesia now joins Singapore and Brazil among countries that have outright blocked Polymarket, while Taiwan, Thailand, China, and Japan have imposed narrower access limits.
The Prabowo Wager That Triggered It
The market was launched on May 21, 2026 — the day after Prabowo announced plans to tighten government control over the country’s major commodity exports. That plan caught investors, traders, and even some of his own officials by surprise, reviving concerns over the credibility and transparency of policymaking under the former general.
Polymarket promoted the market on X. It offered three windows for when Prabowo would leave office:
- End of May 2026
- End of June 2026
- End of December 2026 — the highest probability, at 12%
The market had drawn more than $44,000 in trading volume by the time the block landed. For context: Prabowo’s term actually runs until October 2029, so even the most-favored contract was a low-probability long shot.
Polymarket did not respond to a request for comment.
A Block, Not a Geoblock
This is an important distinction, and the one Indonesian users should understand first.
What happened in Indonesia is a government access block — almost certainly applied at the network level, the same mechanism Komdigi has used to take down roughly 3.4 million gambling-related sites and pieces of digital content since Prabowo took office. It is not a geoblock by Polymarket.
Polymarket has not added Indonesia to its own restricted-countries list, and the platform itself does not turn Indonesian users away. What changed is reachability from inside Indonesia, not Polymarket’s willingness to serve Indonesian accounts. Those are two very different things — and they tend to get conflated in coverage of bans like this one.
How users in network-blocked countries handle that gap is their own call, and not something we’ll walk through here. But it’s worth being clear that the account-level relationship between Polymarket and Indonesian users has not changed; the route to the platform has.
Why Now: Prabowo’s Gambling Crackdown
The block fits a pattern that predates Polymarket’s arrival on the government’s radar.
Since taking office in October 2024, Prabowo has sharply escalated Indonesia’s war on online betting:
- The government has blocked roughly 3.4 million websites and pieces of digital content deemed to facilitate betting, according to official data
- Indonesia’s Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK) estimated online-gambling transactions totaled about 286 trillion rupiah (~$16 billion) last year — despite a national ban
- Under the New Criminal Code (effective January 2026), private online gambling now carries the same penalties as public gambling, with the previous “public place” requirement removed
- Penalties for gambling offenses run up to 10 years in prison
Against that backdrop, a viral market betting on the president’s own removal from office was always going to draw a fast response.
Indonesia Joins a Global Pattern
Prediction markets from Polymarket and Kalshi have become recurring irritants for governments and regulators — both for blurring gambling lines and for amplifying politically sensitive questions.
- India — platforms continue signing up customers despite regulator warnings that they are illegal
- Singapore and Brazil — outright bans (see our Brazil guide for that April 2026 resolution)
- Taiwan, Thailand, China, Japan — narrower access limitations
- United States — no national restriction, but scrutiny is rising. Last month an Army special forces master sergeant was charged with using Polymarket to trade on classified information about the capture of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro — bets authorities say netted $400,000
Indonesia’s block lands squarely in the middle of that trend: a government treating event-outcome wagering as gambling, regardless of the “prediction market” label.
What This Means for Indonesian Users
If you previously used Polymarket from Indonesia, the practical situation has changed:
- Account relationship: Polymarket has not closed Indonesian accounts or added Indonesia to its own geoblock list. The block is on access from inside the country, not on the accounts themselves.
- Existing balances: The block targets reachability, not your funds. If you hold a balance, review your situation with a qualified Indonesian tax/legal advisor before making decisions about it.
- Tax obligations remain: Indonesian crypto-tax rules still apply to past trading activity regardless of the platform’s current status (see below).
- Access: Users in network-blocked countries have historically found their own routes back to platforms like this. That’s a personal decision, and we won’t walk you through the legal calculus.
Tax Still Applies
The block doesn’t erase your tax history. Buying and holding USDC remains legal in Indonesia — crypto is a regulated digital financial asset under OJK — but past Polymarket activity is still reportable.
| Platform Type | Tax Rate | How It Works |
|---|---|---|
| Licensed domestic exchange | 0.21% | Withheld automatically on each transaction |
| Foreign platform (e.g. Polymarket) | 1% | Self-reported; nearly five times the domestic rate |
- The tax is a final income tax on transaction volume, not capital gains
- Crypto transfers are exempt from VAT (crypto is classified as securities since 2025)
- All crypto transactions must be aggregated and reported on your annual SPT (tax return) by March 31
Keep records of all past deposits, trades, and withdrawals — the block doesn’t change what’s already on the books.
Related Reading
- All Country Guides — Check availability for every country
- Country Availability Checker — Instant status lookup for 190+ countries
- Polymarket in Brazil — The April 2026 ban that Indonesia now echoes
- What Is Polymarket? — Full platform overview
- How Polymarket Markets Resolve — How outcomes get settled
- Polymarket Review 2026 — Our honest review after 3 years of trading