UK officials are being urged to intervene after Polymarket listed markets on whether HSBC and Lloyds banks will fail. Critics cite concerns that the platform has a poor reputation for stopping insider trading or preventing bad actors from placing bets. The markets touch on systemically important UK financial institutions, raising questions about whether regulators should step in to limit event contracts on bank solvency.

Bank-failure event contracts on major institutions could attract traders with non-public information, creating manipulation risk that UK regulators have not yet addressed for offshore prediction markets.