WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Betting market Intrade told U.S. customers to close accounts and withdraw all funds by Dec. 31, in a notice on the company’s website, after U.S. regulators filed charges against the company earlier Monday.

“We are sorry to announce that due to legal and regulatory pressures, Intrade can no longer allow US residents to participate in our real-money prediction markets,” Intrade said in the notice.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission charged Intrade with violating its ban on off-exchange options trading because the company doesn’t have approval from U.S. regulators.

The CFTC also charged the Irish company — which is known for offering U.S. customers opportunities to bet on the results of elections, wars and the Academy Awards through its website — with violating a cease-and-desist order stemming from similar charges in 2005. The CFTC also said that Intrade and its parent company, Trade Exchange Network Ltd., made false statements to regulators about their options-trading website.

Intrade said in the online notice that U.S. customers should close out all current predictions by Dec. 23 and withdraw funds by Dec. 31.

“We understand this announcement may come as a surprise and a disappointment, and we apologize for the short notice and haste required to deal with this,” the company said in the notice.

Intrade didn’t respond to a separate request for comment on the CFTC charges.

In the complaint filed Monday in federal district court in Washington, the CFTC argued said the company was running an off-exchange options market that solicited U.S. customers.

“It is against the law to solicit U.S. persons to buy and sell commodity options, even if they are called ‘prediction’ contracts, unless they are listed for trading and traded on a CFTC-registered exchange or unless legally exempt,” Director of Enforcement David Meister said in a statement.

Intrade allows customers to bet on anything from whether a certain movie will win an Academy Award to whether a dictator will be toppled by a certain date. The website displays prices for answers to each question and a prediction about which outcome customers of the site think is most likely. Intrade’s predictions were often referenced in the run-up to the U.S. presidential election.

The CFTC has rejected exchange applications in the past from companies that wanted to sell options on political outcomes.

The CFTC is seeking civil monetary penalties of as much as $130,000 for each illegal trade since 2004.