France’s gambling regulator, L’Autorité Nationale des Jeux (ANJ), took decisive action on July 16, formally ordering nationwide internet service providers (ISPs) to block access to Polymarket. The move reclassifies the prediction market platform as an “illegal gambling website,” explicitly rejecting its categorization as a financial trading venue.
French Regulator Declares Polymarket an Illegal Gambling Platform, Orders Nationwide Blockage
The ANJ highlighted the ineffectiveness of previous restrictions. Despite a ban on local users from engaging in financial transactions via Polymarket since November 2024, the regulator found these measures easily circumvented. The widespread use of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) allowed French citizens to bypass the blocks, significantly limiting their impact.
Citing data from Similarweb, the ANJ revealed that Polymarket still attracted a substantial audience in France. In June alone, the platform recorded 205,000 unique visitors from the country, accumulating 579,000 total visits.
The ANJ noted that even with the transaction ban in place, French individuals could still freely browse Polymarket’s homepage, accessing real-time odds and market predictions for various events.
Regulators argue that the mere display of such real-time odds information inherently promotes and advertises unauthorized gambling services, thereby violating French regulations. In its official statement, the ANJ declared:
The real-time display of various betting events and odds on the website’s homepage has become a major channel for promoting Polymarket’s unauthorized gambling services, even if the platform is not authorized to operate in France.
Violations of these regulations can lead to substantial fines, with penalties potentially reaching up to €100,000 (approximately $114,000 USD).
Notably, the ANJ’s robust action is also influenced by unsettling controversies surrounding prediction market integrity. A “prediction market cheating controversy” involving Météo-France, the national meteorological service, previously surfaced. The agency complained that malicious actors manipulated temperature sensors to influence weather-related prediction markets. This “absurd” incident prompted a formal investigation by the Paris prosecutor’s cybercrime unit on May 4.
Furthermore, the ANJ referenced a French trader, “Fredi9999,” who reportedly invested millions during the 2024 U.S. presidential election. This substantial investment single-handedly shifted election market odds, further underscoring the potential for manipulation and undue influence within prediction markets.
A Shifting Landscape: France’s Firm Stance on Prediction Markets as Gambling
France’s stance on prediction markets has been progressively hardening. In February, the ANJ officially reclassified prediction markets as illegal gambling. This decision was based on concerns about their highly addictive nature and the absence of crucial consumer protection tools, such as betting limits and self-exclusion mechanisms designed to prevent problem gambling.
This latest move is part of a broader regulatory crackdown. Last year, France blocked a significant number of gambling-related URLs, totaling 1,290. Now, France joins a growing global coalition against Polymarket, which is already restricted or blocked in over 30 jurisdictions. Switzerland initiated the trend in November 2024, followed by Poland, Singapore, and Belgium in early 2025. Portugal implemented restrictions in January 2026, while Spain launched an investigation and imposed a temporary block in May.
Beyond these, numerous other countries have also taken measures to restrict the platform, including Brazil, Argentina, India, Indonesia, Italy, Germany, Romania, Hungary, and Ukraine.
As more nations integrate prediction markets into their gambling regulatory frameworks, Polymarket faces intensifying global scrutiny. This widespread regulatory pressure underscores a fundamental and ongoing debate among international supervisory bodies: are prediction markets best categorized as financial instruments, informational tools, or indeed, gambling services?
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