France Yanks France's Cord on Polymarket 🇫🇷

France's Autorité nationale des jeux (ANJ) has ordered internet service providers to block access to Polymarket, escalating a months-long standoff over the prediction market's status in the country. The regulator said in a Friday press release that prediction websites are considered illegal gambling, and that Polymarket's operations are not authorized in France. Advertising unauthorized gambling sites constitutes a criminal offense with fines of up to 100,000 euros ($114,000), according to the ANJ.

The order, issued on July 16, followed the ANJ's February 2026 reclassification of prediction markets as illegal gambling. The regulator cited "addictive features" similar to regulated gambling offerings but "amplified by the absence of the protective mechanisms found in the legal gambling market," including stake limits and self-exclusion tools. The ANJ added that some contracts appeared to expose outcome-manipulation risks, writing: "Some of the bets offered on this platform appeared to be rigged: for example, bets on the weather revealed that weather sensors may have been hacked." A complaint from Météo-France over a tampered temperature sensor tied to weather-based bets prompted the Paris Public Prosecutor's cybercrime unit to open an investigation on May 4, according to the ANJ.

Polymarket drew 578,751 visits from 205,057 unique visitors in France in June, according to Similarweb data cited by the regulator, despite a ban on financial transactions in place since November 2024. The ANJ said the site's homepage, which displays real-time odds for various events, "serves as a major channel for disseminating and promoting Polymarket's offerings, even though the site's operations are not authorized in France." France's gambling regulator first shared plans to block the platform in November 2024 for failing to comply with national gambling laws. Last year, France blocked 1,290 gambling-related URLs.

The ANJ also pointed to a French trader known as "Fredi9999," who moved U.S. election odds with multimillion-dollar positions in 2024. Polymarket is geoblocked in 36 regions and has drawn scrutiny from regulators over whether its event contracts constitute illegal gambling or unlicensed financial products. Countries that have blocked access to Polymarket include Singapore, Poland, Portugal, Hungary, Ukraine, Brazil, Indonesia, Switzerland and Belgium. In the United States, Kentucky sued five prediction market platforms, including Kalshi and Polymarket, on June 17, accusing them of operating unlicensed sports betting platforms, and at least 17 other states have followed suit. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission sued eight states, arguing they had interfered with the federal regulator's exclusive authority over federally regulated event contracts. Polymarket did not immediately respond to a request for comment.