Americans are turning to VPN services to bet on the US election
Interest in Polymarket VPNs has been spiking since mid-October
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There are just a few days left before the most awaited presidential election of the year and the polls still show avery close racebetween the two candidates: former President Donald Trump and current Vice President Kamala Harris.
It’s in this divisive and uncertain context that increasingly more people in the US have been turning to thebest VPNapps to access Polymarket, a popular online betting and prediction platform, to bet on who’s going to be the winner.
“General industry data shows that VPN usage in the US has risen by approximately 15-20% in the last year alone, with prediction markets being one of the contributing factors,“PureVPN reportedon Thursday, October 31.
What’s behind the spike in US VPNs?
A VPN, short forvirtual private network, is a security software that encrypts your internet connections to prevent third-party snooping and spoofs your real IP address location to grant you access to otherwise geo-restricted content. The latter skill is exactly why the usage ofUS VPNservices has been spiking lately.
In the United States, online gambling is regulated by a fragmented system, which includes the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) of 2006. Prediction platforms like Polymarket fall into a grey area as, despite betting being distinct from traditional gambling, they still have to follow the same rules.
“However, the growing demand for prediction markets suggests that there is significant interest in these platforms, which VPNs are helping to fulfill,” notedPureVPN.
As the image above shows, Google searches for Polymarket VPNs began spiking in the middle of October, about a month before the big day.
By connecting to aVPN serverlocated in a country where the platform operates legally, users in the US can access Polymarket and place bets if they wish to do so.
VPN services are also handy tools to boost users' privacy when browsing the web. This is because they encrypt all the data leaving a device into theirVPN protocolso that third parties are prevented from seeing the content of your internet connections.
Similar to the Polymarket use case,streaming VPNservices are increasingly popular among people in the US and beyond who want to access foreign catalogs within a couple of clicks.
Chiara is a multimedia journalist committed to covering stories to help promote the rights and denounce the abuses of the digital side of life—wherever cybersecurity, markets and politics tangle up.She mainly writes news, interviews and analysis on data privacy, online censorship, digital rights, cybercrime, and security software, with a special focus on VPNs, for TechRadar Pro, TechRadar and Tom’s Guide. Got a story, tip-off or something tech-interesting to say? Reach out to chiara.castro@futurenet.com
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