Polymarket's VPN Crackdown Echoes a Familiar Online Poker Playbook

Polymarket says it's cracking down on the use of virtual private networks to access its platform from restricted jurisdictions. The timing is notable: the company is tightening geocompliance only after scaling into a dominant, multi-billion-dollar position. That sequence — grow first, comply later — is familiar to anyone who has watched the online poker industry, where GGPoker followed an almost identical path to the top.

Polymarket's scale dwarfs online poker's; the company was recently valued in the tens of billions of dollars, likely exceeding the entire global online poker market. But the playbook is the same: gain an early advantage by tolerating access from banned jurisdictions, then make a public show of compliance once that access has helped build market dominance.

How VPN Access Fueled GGPoker's Rise

A decade ago, GGPoker was a minor player while PokerStars towered over the global online poker market. Within a few years, GGPoker became a legitimate rival, and today it leads the industry in traffic. Part of that rise came from welcoming American players who used VPNs and local agents to set up accounts, even though the U.S. market was officially off-limits. Site ambassador Daniel Negreanu was on record saying he didn't view VPN use as cheating, and players at major live tournaments discussed playing on GGPoker openly among themselves.

The situation grew more brazen when GGPoker began requiring some high-stakes players to compete under their real names — occasionally resulting in players cashing major online tournaments the same day they were publicly known to be at live U.S. events.

Beating PokerStars at Its Own Gray-Market Game

GGPoker's aggressive growth, combined with PokerStars' forced exit from Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, helped close the gap between the two operators. PokerStars itself had risen to dominance through a similar gray-market approach, continuing to serve U.S. customers after the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act drove its main rival out of the country — a strategy that eventually led to the federal Black Friday shutdown in 2011. By then, PokerStars had built such a commanding lead that it weathered the fallout and remained the market leader for another decade, gradually becoming more compliant as it matured — which left an opening for GGPoker's harder-charging approach.

Scale First, Comply Later

Polymarket appears to be running the same playbook. Multiple outlets, including Sportico, have described VPN access to Polymarket as an "open secret." One sportsbook executive told ReadWrite that prediction markets have little real interest in geoblocking, noting that the technology to do so effectively already exists — it simply hasn't been a priority.

Will the Late Pivot to Compliance Pay Off?

GGPoker's story ended well for the company: it's now arguably the leading operator in both online and live poker, partly through its $500 million acquisition of the World Series of Poker brand. Notably, GGPoker has not attempted to re-enter the U.S. through a regulated, licensed product — the market may simply not be large enough to justify the effort today.

Polymarket, by contrast, is pursuing both paths simultaneously: a CFTC-regulated U.S. product and a separate, fee-free international crypto-based exchange. That dual structure gives the company flexibility regardless of how prediction market regulation evolves, including the possibility that political winds shift after the next presidential inauguration in 2029. Polymarket has already benefited from VPN users who helped build its early user base; now that it has a regulated U.S. product to direct them toward, the company says that access is no longer welcome. The timing of that shift is the real story — and it's a strategy this industry has seen succeed before.