Kalshi Colombia: Cited Everywhere, Licensed Nowhere

Kalshi Colombia sits in an odd spot: the country's biggest news outlets spent the first half of 2026 quoting Kalshi's own probability numbers as running commentary on Colombia's presidential race, while Colombia's gambling regulator was busy getting a rival prediction platform blocked over that exact same election. This page covers why Polymarket got the block order and Kalshi didn't, and why neither outcome tells you whether a Colombian resident is actually allowed to fund an account.

Legal status in Colombia

Colombia treats gambling as a fiscal monopoly of the state under Law 643 of 2001, administered nationally by Coljuegos — the same framework this site has documented giving Colombia one of Latin America's cleaner online betting license systems, currently held by roughly fifteen operators including Wplay, Rushbet, Betplay, Betsson, and Betano. Prediction markets ran into that monopoly directly in 2025: on September 24, the industry association Fecoljuegos petitioned Coljuegos to block platforms letting users bet on Colombia's 2026 presidential election, warning the practice risked enabling manipulation of opinion trends, poll-buying, and misinformation ahead of the vote. Coljuegos agreed, and around September 30–October 1, 2025 requested that MinTIC order Polymarket blocked nationally, citing operation without a license or effective controls. Coljuegos president Marco Emilio Hincapié went further in public remarks, calling prediction markets broadly "apuestas disfrazadas de analítica" — bets disguised as analytics — a description that does not carve out Kalshi by name but plainly describes what Kalshi's own election contracts do. The block itself, however, named only Polymarket. It runs through Circular 017 of 2025, which has MinTIC publish a weekly URL list that every Colombian ISP must download and block; Coljuegos has pushed roughly 26,600 blocking orders through that mechanism against unlicensed gambling sites since it launched. Kalshi has never appeared on a published version of that list. That gap did not stop Kalshi's own numbers from becoming a recurring citation in Colombian political journalism: outlets including Semana, El Tiempo, Infobae, and Portafolio quoted Kalshi's probabilities on Abelardo de la Espriella, Iván Cepeda, and Paloma Valencia repeatedly between February and the May 31, 2026 first round (De la Espriella 43.7%, Cepeda 40.9%, setting a June 21 runoff). Kalshi holds no Coljuegos concession contract — the same license roughly fifteen other operators do hold — and does not appear as a registered securities intermediary in the Registro Nacional de Valores y Emisores, the registry the Superintendencia Financiera keeps for anything sold locally as an investment product. Accessible, widely quoted, and unlicensed can all be true about the same platform at once.

State gambling authority: Coljuegos (Empresa Industrial y Comercial del Estado), under the Ministry of Finance, holds the national gambling monopoly and requested the Polymarket block; MinTIC enforces the weekly ISP blocklist under Circular 017 of 2025. Neither has issued a public order against Kalshi specifically as of August 2026.

For most of 2026, Kalshi was on the front page of Colombian politics without anyone in Colombia being told it was safe to bet on. Semana and El Tiempo ran headline after headline citing its probability swings on Abelardo de la Espriella, Iván Cepeda, and Paloma Valencia. Coljuegos, meanwhile, had already gotten a rival platform blocked nationwide for doing the same thing.

The Election Complaint That Blocked Polymarket, Not Kalshi

On September 24, 2025, Fecoljuegos — the trade association for Colombia’s licensed casino and betting operators — petitioned Coljuegos to block platforms letting users wager on Colombia’s 2026 presidential election, warning the practice opened the door to manipulating opinion trends, buying up polling narratives, and spreading misinformation during the campaign. Coljuegos agreed. Around September 30 to October 1, 2025, it requested that MinTIC add Polymarket to the national blocklist, on the grounds that Colombia treats all gambling as a fiscal monopoly of the state under Law 643 of 2001, and Polymarket held no Coljuegos authorization. The block went through. Kalshi’s name is nowhere in that request.

The regulator’s own words reach further than the block did. Coljuegos president Marco Emilio Hincapié has publicly called prediction markets “apuestas disfrazadas de analítica” — bets disguised as analytics — a description of the entire category, not a Polymarket-specific complaint. The published blocklist still stops at one platform.

Is Kalshi Legal in Colombia? What Coljuegos Actually Requires

Coljuegos runs Colombia’s only path to a legal online betting product: a national concession contract, currently held by roughly fifteen operators including Wplay, Rushbet, Betplay, Betsson, and Betano. Kalshi holds none of it. Separately, Kalshi does not appear in the Registro Nacional de Valores y Emisores, the registry the Superintendencia Financiera keeps for anything sold to Colombians as a securities or derivatives product. Whether Kalshi’s contracts belong under Coljuegos’s gambling monopoly, the Superintendencia Financiera’s securities rules, or neither has never been resolved by a Colombian authority — which is the actual reason this page calls the status gray instead of picking a side for you.

The Colombia timeline:

September 24, 2025 — Fecoljuegos petitions Coljuegos to block election-betting platforms
September 30–October 1, 2025 — Coljuegos requests MinTIC block Polymarket nationally
February–May 2026 — Colombian outlets cite Kalshi’s own probabilities on the presidential race throughout the campaign
May 31, 2026 — first round: De la Espriella 43.7%, Cepeda 40.9%, setting a June 21 runoff
August 2026 — Kalshi still not on a published Coljuegos/MinTIC blocklist

Is Kalshi Legit for a Colombian Reader — or Just Widely Quoted?

Those are different questions, and Colombian media coverage answers only one of them. Semana, El Tiempo, Infobae, and Portafolio treating Kalshi’s odds as a legitimate data point on the race confirms Kalshi is a real, active exchange with public order books — the same way a foreign pollster gets cited without anyone implying it holds a Colombian license. None of that press coverage is a Coljuegos ruling, an SFC authorization, or an RNVE listing. Legit as a US-regulated exchange and cleared as a Colombian betting product are not the same claim, and only one of them is true here.

Is It Safe to Trade Kalshi From Colombia Right Now?

The site loads — Kalshi is not currently on MinTIC’s weekly ISP blocklist the way Polymarket is. That is a narrower kind of safe than it sounds. Circular 017 of 2025 lets Coljuegos add a new URL to that list on an ongoing basis, no new law required, and it has already used that power once this cycle against a platform running the exact same kind of election contract. Nothing licensed backs a Colombian account: no Coljuegos concession, no consumer-protection framework, no local regulator to call if a contract settles in a way you dispute. You are relying entirely on Kalshi’s US-side process.

Who This Page Is For

Colombians who noticed Kalshi’s numbers all over the news during the 2026 campaign and assumed that meant something about its legal standing at home. It doesn’t. Coljuegos has the same monopoly law, the same blocking mechanism, and the same public objection to the category that already took down Polymarket — it simply hasn’t pointed that mechanism at Kalshi yet. Trading event contracts, wherever that eventually lands under Colombian law, can lose the full stake. It is not a way to make money, and right now it is not a licensed one in Colombia either.

Kalshi Colombia — Frequently Asked Questions

Is Kalshi legal in Colombia?

Not licensed, and not named in a block order either — a genuine gray zone. Coljuegos holds Colombia's gambling monopoly under Law 643 of 2001 and Kalshi holds none of its concession contracts, the same license roughly fifteen operators like Wplay and Rushbet do carry. But the only prediction-market platform Coljuegos has actually ordered blocked over Colombia's 2026 election is Polymarket, not Kalshi.

Why did Colombia block Polymarket but not Kalshi?

No published record explains the gap, and it likely isn't a legal distinction. Fecoljuegos's September 2025 complaint and Coljuegos's resulting block request targeted Polymarket by name over Colombia's presidential race; Coljuegos president Marco Emilio Hincapié then described prediction markets as a category — "apuestas disfrazadas de analítica" — without adding Kalshi to the actual blocklist. The most likely explanation is that Polymarket carried more visible Colombian election volume when the complaint was filed, not that Kalshi's contracts work any differently under Colombian law.

Is Kalshi legit if Colombian news outlets keep citing its numbers?

Being quoted by Semana, El Tiempo, Infobae, and Portafolio throughout the 2026 campaign confirms Kalshi is a real, active market with public order books — not that Colombia has cleared it as a licensed local product. Those outlets were citing Kalshi's probabilities as data points on the race, the same way they might cite a foreign pollster. None of that coverage implies Coljuegos authorization, and Kalshi has none.

Is it safe for someone in Colombia to trade Kalshi's election contracts?

Kalshi itself is not currently blocked at the ISP level in Colombia the way Polymarket is, so the site loads. Safety in the fuller sense is thinner: no Coljuegos license means no Colombian consumer-protection framework and no local regulator to appeal to if a contract settles in a way you dispute, and MinTIC's Circular 017 mechanism can add a new URL to the weekly blocklist without much warning — it already has for one rival platform running the same kind of contract.

Could Kalshi end up blocked in Colombia like Polymarket?

Nothing prevents it. The legal theory Coljuegos used against Polymarket — an unlicensed platform taking money on the outcome of Colombia's own election — applies to Kalshi's contracts on the same race just as directly. Circular 017's weekly-list system means Coljuegos does not need new legislation to add Kalshi; it only needs to decide to, the way it already decided once.

Does Kalshi need a Superintendencia Financiera authorization to operate in Colombia?

Kalshi does not appear in Colombia's Registro Nacional de Valores y Emisores, the registry the Superintendencia Financiera maintains for securities and derivatives intermediaries selling to Colombian residents. Whether Kalshi's contracts should be regulated as securities, as gambling under Coljuegos, or as neither has not been settled by any Colombian authority — which is exactly why this page calls the status gray rather than clear in either direction.

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