In February 2026, Lorenzo Miro San Diego sued Polymarket after losing more than $1,700 on the platform. He later said users had no way to limit how much they could lose. Polymarket is now addressing that gap through a new user-protection programme.
London's trading industry is coming home!
The measures resemble safeguards commonly used by sportsbooks and online casinos, even as the company argues that its event contracts should be treated as financial products rather than gambling.
Users Can Set Limits or Block Access
US users will be able to set daily, weekly or monthly deposit limits across all funding methods. Reductions will take effect immediately, while raising or removing a limit will require a cooling-off period.
Traders can also exclude themselves from Polymarket for 30 days, one year or permanently. Users experiencing compulsive trading behaviour will have access to resources from Birches Health, a US provider specialising in behavioural and process addictions.
Birches offers virtual services across all 50 states, including clinical assessments, individual recovery plans and ongoing treatment. Polymarket did not say whether users would pay for these services or whether the platform would cover any of the costs.
The company is also expanding its Trust and Safety team across its US and international platforms. A new centralised Trust & Safety Centre will set out its user-protection, market-integrity and community-moderation policies.
- After Coinbase, Gemini and Kalshi, New York Takes Its Prediction Market Fight to Polymarket
- Polymarket Wants Financial Status in Europe, but It May Come with a Retail Ban
- Yahoo Finance Removes Polymarket Data Hub but Keeps Advertising Relationship
Polymarket Adopts Gambling-Style Controls
Self-exclusion, deposit caps and cooling-off periods are established responsible-gambling measures. Sportsbooks and online casinos use them to let customers restrict their access and spending. Other prediction-market platforms, including Kalshi, have introduced similar controls.
Their adoption highlights the overlap between the consumer risks associated with event contracts and those found in conventional gambling, regardless of how the products are ultimately classified by regulators.
The scale of harmful behaviour among prediction-market users remains unknown. A 2024 survey by the National Council on Problem Gambling found that 8% of US adults, or almost 20 million people, had experienced at least one indicator of problematic gambling behaviour “many times” during the previous year.
The findings covered gambling generally rather than prediction markets specifically. Polymarket has not explained whether self-exclusion applies only to one profile or can be enforced across linked accounts and wallets.
It also remains unclear whether the deposit limits cover both its US and international platforms.
