Polymarket has appointed a representative in Japan and is preparing to lobby regulators for authorization of prediction markets there, according to Bloomberg reporting on Friday citing people familiar with the matter. The platform is targeting government approval by 2030 as it searches for growth beyond the United States. Polymarket views Japan as a large, untapped opportunity, and the four-year runway gives the company room to build its case with regulators and lawmakers before any contracts go live. Currently, Japan sits on Polymarket's list of restricted jurisdictions due to the country's strict gambling laws, which treat most event-based wagering as illegal. Legal scrutiny in the United States has constrained Polymarket's activity, pushing the company to look toward larger international markets for its next phase of expansion.
Japan Leadership and Regulatory Strategy
Mike Eidlin is leading Polymarket's Japan efforts, according to people familiar with the strategy. Eidlin works as head of Japan at crypto firm Jupiter, per his LinkedIn profile, and declined to comment on whether he is working with Polymarket. Japan's strict gambling laws have kept betting functions switched off for users inside the country, as the platform cites "regulatory requirements" for blocking local users. Polymarket lets users wager cryptocurrency on the outcomes of elections, political events and economic developments through blockchain-based contracts.
Recent Platform Growth and Product Expansion
Polymarket's metrics have climbed alongside its expansion efforts. Weekly fee inflows reached $9.6 million this week, the platform's highest of the year, with the US market contributing roughly 29%, or about $2.8 million. Cumulative volume across the platform now stands at $84.3 billion.
The company recently launched prediction markets tied to private company milestones, covering IPO timing and valuation thresholds for firms including OpenAI, Anthropic and Stripe, with resolution data drawn from Nasdaq Private Market. In April, the platform completed its largest infrastructure overhaul since launch, rolling out a new order book, fresh contracts and a USD-denominated stablecoin to serve as primary collateral. The company also denied a reported data breach earlier this month, calling claims that hundreds of thousands of user records had been compromised an aggregation of already-public on-chain and API data rather than evidence of a system intrusion.
