Vicki Scott: Internal Affairs Director of Gambling explains why Polymarket is illegal

New Zealand-based gambling experts have claimed prediction market platforms like Polymarket are illegal under the nation's gambling laws.

Platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi are online markets where users can place bets on future outcomes, like political news events or OCR updates.

Internal Affairs Director of Gambling Vicki Scott says Polymarket meets the definition of their illegal framework - and they're looking to shut it down.

"We wrote to both Kalshi and Polymarket yesterday, explaining our view that it's clearly in breach of our laws and requesting their immediate removal from the New Zealand market."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Ever do for z Ellen our nineteen past five now
authorities have ruled that poly Market and call Sheet are
illegal under New Zealand's gambling laws. Now these are international
gambling websites where you can best on just about anything,
and punters on poly Market have collectively bet one hundred
and fifty thousand dollars on tomorrow's ocr decision by the
Reserve Bank. Vicky Scott is the DIA Director of Gambling

(00:23):
and with US high VICKI Hi Heaver. Why is it illegal?

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Look, it pretty clearly meets the definition of gambling and
the Gambling Act, which is defined pretty broadly as paying
or staking consideration on the outcome of something when you're
seeking to win money, and when that outcome depends wholly
or partly on chance. With that aside from the legal definition,
the features of these sorts of bets are akin to

(00:50):
any other kind of sports or novelty betting that you
see out there. There's where sort of other jurisdictions have
recently come to the same conclusion Australia recently and more
recently the UK, and we've taken a look at it
against our legal framework and it's it's pretty clear that
it meets the definition.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
Are you going to shut it down?

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yeah? So actually we wrote to both Kolshi and Polymarket
yesterday explaining our view that it's clearly in breach of
our law and requesting their immediate removal from the New
Zealand market. And it looks it appears as though they
have now GEO blocked. So account holders have had a
message I understand that says that they can no longer
access their account. They can still withdraw funds, but they

(01:34):
can't use them to place bets. And the polymarket website
appears to be unavailable.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Are you looking at it right now?

Speaker 2 (01:40):
To key?

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Am I hearing you reach over to c if you
if you.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Can get to look at it before I left the
office that I haven't checked it in the time it
took me to drive home.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
When did they cut us off at some point today?

Speaker 2 (01:54):
So it was almost immediate response to our correspondent.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
That's surprised you because I would have thought that if
they I mean, because really you actually couldn't do very
much right, So I would have thought they would know
that and just be like, nah, come for us. Does
it surprise you that to actually shut.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
It down obviously enforcing against these overseas companies is always tricky.
The fact that they aren't arguing the toss about whether
or not the products are gambling suggests to me that
they know they're playing in a grade space and a
lot of these market Yeah, and you know, New Zealand
isn't the biggest market out there. So sometimes what we find,
because we've been taking the same approach when we write

(02:27):
to betting operators who are operating a breach here, sometimes
the New Zealand market's not really even on their radar.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
And so the Vicky, I just I'm on polymarket dot com.
Should I be able to do that?

Speaker 2 (02:42):
If you can access the website, that's not a breach,
it's the actual placing of it.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Oh, I see, So most people should be able to
go on the website, they just can't actually bet on it.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Yeah, that's what would require them to do is actually
GEO a block the betting services from New Zealanders. So
I understand that how she's done that. We're still doing
some thing obviously because it's all happened pretty quickly. But
I'm hoping that Polly Market will follow suit.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Thank you, Vicky, I appreciate it. Vicky Scott Department of
Internal Affairs, Director of Gambling. Do you want to see
what they're betting on? Apart from the OCR I would
have thought the OC is an obvious one. What are
you betting on? It's a hold tomorrow, isn't it anything else?
Seems like you're wasting your money. Another bet, the US
will strike a round by Sunday is paying eleven dollars eleven.

(03:29):
Jeffrey Epstein will be confirmed to be alive by the
end of this year is paying eighteen dollars. The next
grand Theft auto game will cost more than one hundred dollars.
US is paying two hundred dollars, so that's a good return.
Jesus Christ will return by the end of this year
is only paying twenty seven. It's only paying twenty seven dollars.
Doesn't feel like I feel like the odds are funny

(03:51):
on that one. What do you think? For more from
Heather Duplessy Allen Drive, Listen live to news talks.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
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Speaker 1 (04:00):
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