How did I get caught up in the Polymarket election gambling controversy?

According to previous reports, the blockchain-based prediction platform Polymarket provided prediction markets for the Taiwan presidential election, which has sparked a law enforcement investigation by Taiwanese prosecutors. Individuals involved in the Polymarket prediction event stated that, although they unintentionally violated election laws due to unawareness, they were also surprised that personal information from the exchange could be easily obtained.

Taiwanese Citizens Arrested for Participating in Online Election Prediction

The Yunlin District Prosecutors Office issued a press release on December 19th regarding the progress of the investigation into the Polymarket election prediction trading. On December 14th, more than 70 police officers conducted raids nationwide and ultimately arrested 17 individuals suspected of participating in the trading, with a total amount of $5502 USDC involved. Currently, these individuals have been released pending further summons by the prosecutor's office.

Online Prediction Events Also Involve Election Laws

According to Article 88-1 of the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act, any gambling conducted in public places or places accessible to the public, with the election results as the subject, may result in up to six months of imprisonment or a fine. This also applies to gambling conducted through telecommunications devices, the internet, and other means. Additionally, providing venues for gambling or organizing gambling activities may result in up to five years of imprisonment and a fine.

Can Online Trading Affect Election Outcomes?

On the Polymarket platform, trading pairs related to the Taiwan presidential election were listed. DeFi players may consider such prediction platforms as nothing more than Gamble-Fi, unrelated to the regulations of the offline world. However, in the eyes of law enforcement agencies, these types of transactions involving specific sensitive content may also become targets of policy enforcement.

Why Did Attempts to Bypass Online Censorship Fail?

It is understood that the users who were questioned by the police mainly withdrew funds from centralized exchanges such as Binance and OKEx to the Polymarket platform. Due to the public transparency of blockchain, every transaction can be traced, and the prosecutor's office can trace the addresses and transfer records of the participants. Transactions are also required to comply with regulatory demands and provide user KYC information.

By tracing the online interactions between Polymarket participants and centralized exchange addresses, the prosecutor's office can request KYC information from the centralized exchanges, thus discovering the true identities.

No Precedent for Online Election Gambling

However, in Taiwan's judicial history, there is currently no precedent for decentralized platforms and election prediction events. This case will set a precedent for such cases.

How do the Parties Involved See It? Surprised by the Ease of Obtaining Personal Information

One of the individuals involved in the case was interviewed exclusively and stated that the entire process of the case left him confused. Besides being arrested early in the morning by three criminal police officers with an arrest warrant, because the investigation was conducted by the Yunlin District Prosecutors Office, the individual had to be accompanied by criminal police to the office to provide explanations.

During the first questioning process, the individual attempted to explain to the police from the perspective of a decentralized service user, the idea of using Polymarket. However, the police and the prosecutor's limited understanding of the relevant concepts made the questioning process difficult.

After the second questioning, the individual finally admitted to involvement in gambling and violating the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act.

What the individual cannot understand is that centralized exchanges make their personal information nearly transparent, and the police can quickly obtain any information from the exchanges. The individual is highly skeptical of whether this investigative approach is proportionate.

In fact, centralized exchanges currently have institutionalized cooperation with regulatory authorities, and illegal activities conducted through exchange accounts will not go unnoticed.

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Readers are reminded that participating in election-related predictions violates Article 88-1 of the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act, with a maximum penalty of six months in prison. Readers are urged not to test the law.

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