Polymarket Wants Traders to ID Themselves as It Faces Sanctions, Legal Risks

In Russia, making bets on Polymarket isn’t permitted by the popular online prediction market’s rules. But that hasn’t stopped Ruslan Kashaev, a software developer who lives in the small Russian city of Ufa, a 15-hour drive from Moscow, from turning the site into a lucrative source of income.

Using automated trading bots hosted on the Telegram encrypted messaging service, Kashaev has convinced thousands of Russian-speaking traders to bet on Polymarket. Kashaev’s website and YouTube channel, Russian Polymarket, promotes strategies to Russians seeking big, fast returns on the prediction market: “For every 10,000 rubles, that’s about 4,000 rubles in profit every 3–4 days.” He makes money by charging fees for people to use his bots.