India PROGA Ban Forces Kalshi Out of Prediction Market

⏱ 3 min read

India's PROGA ban has claimed its most prominent international casualty. Kalshi, the CFTC-regulated US prediction market, updated its member agreement on June 17, 2026 to designate India a restricted jurisdiction, barring all users from trading event contracts. The move was confirmed publicly on June 23 and extends Kalshi's blocked-market list to 55 jurisdictions.

The withdrawal follows a months-long standoff. India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) issued a warning to VPN providers on April 25, 2026, calling out Kalshi and Polymarket by name for remaining accessible despite being illegal under the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act 2025 (PROGA). Kalshi's website had gone dark across Indian ISPs by late May; formal compliance followed three weeks later.

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What PROGA Bans and How It Is Enforced

Parliament passed PROGA in August 2025. The accompanying Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Rules 2026 were notified by MeitY on 22 April 2026 and came into force on 1 May 2026. The law creates three categories of online games: e-sports (skill-based, permitted with registration), social games (non-monetary, broadly permitted), and online money games — which are completely prohibited, including offering, advertising, and payment processing. Criminal penalties run to 3 years imprisonment and fines of up to ₹1 crore.

The Online Gaming Authority of India (OGAI) — operational from 1 May 2026 as an attached office of MeitY — enforces the ban. It publishes an official list of prohibited platforms, can direct banks to freeze payments for any listed service, and coordinates website blocking under Section 69A of the IT Act. Senior bank and payment executives face personal criminal liability for failing due-diligence obligations. Operators including Head Digital Works (A23) and Clubboom 11 Sports are challenging PROGA's constitutionality in the Supreme Court under Articles 14 and 19(1)(g).

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Kalshi's India Timeline

As recently as October 2025, Kalshi announced expansion into 140 countries, citing cricket's digitally native fan base as an India opportunity. By the IPL season in early 2026, the platform was still onboarding Indian users; a single May 7 match generated $27.7 million in combined trading on Kalshi and Polymarket. When challenged in May, Kalshi's legal counsel stated the company had contacted the government and had not been ordered to shut down. The June 17 member-agreement amendment ended that holding pattern. Polymarket had already been blocked by MeitY around May 21 — the enforcement template Kalshi ultimately followed.

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Operator Scorecard: Who Withdrew and What It Cost

Operator	Segment	Status	Quantified Impact
Flutter / Junglee Games	Skill gaming	All paid ops suspended Aug 2025; 350–800 jobs cut	$556M goodwill impairment; $250M revenue loss projected for 2026
Dream11	Fantasy sports	All paid contests frozen Aug 2025	Not publicly disclosed
Probo	Opinion trading	Closed; site message cites PROGA directly	Not publicly disclosed
Polymarket	Prediction market	Blocked by MeitY via ISPs, ~May 21 2026	Not publicly disclosed
Kalshi	Prediction market (CFTC-regulated)	ISP-blocked late May; member agreement updated June 17	IPL trading volume approaching 50% of US baseball on peak days

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Where Indian Players Are Going Next

MeitY's own April letter acknowledged enforcement was a "whack-a-mole" exercise — new access routes open after existing ones are blocked. Displaced users are migrating to crypto-based prediction platforms operating on stablecoin rails, accessible via VPN, and outside Indian jurisdiction. In 2026 alone, more than 10 governments globally have introduced bans or major restrictions on prediction markets; India's action fits a coordinated pattern. Gambling regulators from nine European countries signed a joint declaration on June 17 — the same day Kalshi amended its member agreement — committing to act against unlicensed prediction platforms. For offshore-licensed operators serving Indian players, the flight from regulated domestic options represents the clearest demand signal since PROGA passed.

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Sources

Primary regulatory sources are listed first, followed by verified financial and trade press reporting.

Polymarket, Kalshi and other prediction markets would obviously fall under online money games under PROGA — there is a blanket ban.

— Jay Sayta, Technology & Gaming Lawyer, Mumbai · Business Standard, May 2026