France Slams Polymarket: Illegal Gambling

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France’s decision to block access to Polymarket is not a quirky move against one crypto start‑up; it is a clear expression of a broader European judgment that real‑money prediction markets are, in legal terms, unlicensed gambling and will be treated as such.

Key Points

France’s gambling regulator, ANJ, now formally classifies real‑money prediction markets as illegal gambling services and has used its blocking powers against Polymarket.
The Polymarket block caps a two‑year escalation: financial transaction bans, IP geoblocking, then an order to French ISPs to cut access at the network level.
ANJ’s case rests on consumer protection: no identity checks, no deposit or loss limits, no self‑exclusion tools, and addictive dynamics similar to online betting.
Polymarket has made partial compliance moves, including geoblocking and insider‑trading rules, but has not obtained a French license or matched regulated safeguards.
The French action is part of a coordinated European crackdown in which prediction markets are increasingly barred for retail users across much of the continent.

From Crypto Curiosity to “Illegal Gambling”: How France Got Here

To understand why France ordered internet service providers to block access to Polymarket, you have to start with how French law draws the line between financial speculation and gambling. Under France’s gambling framework, any service that lets the public stake money on uncertain outcomes with a chance of gain or loss is treated as a “jeu d’argent et de hasard” – a gambling activity – unless narrowly carved out by financial regulation. Only a defined set of products, operated by licensed firms subject to strict supervision, may legally be offered online to French residents. Everything else, however innovative its branding, falls on the wrong side of that line.

Polymarket’s core product is simple: users buy and sell event‑linked contracts whose price reflects the probability of future outcomes – elections, macroeconomic indicators, even weather events. From a technologist’s perspective, this looks like a decentralized information market built on blockchain rails. From ANJ’s perspective, it is a venue where retail users place bets on real‑world events, with wins and losses settled in cryptocurrency, outside the control of French authorities. By November 2024, ANJ had already concluded that Polymarket’s services “could be regarded as unauthorised gambling and games of chance” and pressed the offshore operator to stop taking French bets. That assessment became the foundation for everything that followed.

Stepwise Escalation: From Geoblocking to ISP‑Level Cutoff

The French block on Polymarket did not arrive overnight. It is the culmination of a staged enforcement strategy that mirrors how regulators typically deal with unlicensed online casinos and betting sites. The first step came in late 2024, when ANJ compelled Polymarket’s operator to implement IP‑based geoblocking so that users connecting from French addresses could no longer place trades. Around the same time, ANJ moved to choke off the money flows, banning financial transactions to Polymarket from within France so that card payments and other regulated channels could not be used to fund wagers. In regulatory practice, cutting off payment access is often a warning shot: a signal to both operators and users that the service is considered illegal.

Geoblocking, however, is a porous tool. ANJ later acknowledged that Polymarket’s block was “contournable via VPN” – easy enough for technically literate users to bypass with a virtual private network. French residents could still reach the site, deposit crypto via offshore exchanges, and bet as before. That technical reality matters: regulators judge not only whether an operator says it is restricting access, but whether those restrictions are effective in practice. By early 2026, ANJ’s patience had worn thin. In a February communication addressed to the broader market, it stated plainly that “prediction market platforms are not authorised and are considered illegal gambling services” in France. That moved the issue from Polymarket’s specific case to the entire category.

The decisive step came on July 16, 2026, when the president of ANJ used powers granted under French law to order domestic internet service providers to block Polymarket’s website. The regulator’s public rationale was unambiguous: Polymarket “promotes an illegal gambling and betting offering” and exposes users to significant loss risks, with some wagers appearing susceptible to manipulation. Within France, this kind of administrative block is akin to turning the site’s lights off at the border; instead of relying on the operator’s geoblocking, ANJ instructs the networks themselves to intercept and deny access.

Why ANJ Calls Prediction Markets “Risky” for Consumers

ANJ’s classification of prediction markets as illegal gambling is rooted in consumer protection rather than in discomfort with crypto as such. In its February 2026 statement, the authority argued that these platforms share the most addictive features of online gambling – continuous access, variable rewards, social competitivity – but operate without the mandatory safeguards imposed on licensed French operators. Legal gambling sites in France must offer deposit and loss limits, time‑out functions, age and identity verification, and robust self‑exclusion mechanisms that allow players to bar themselves from all licensed operators. Prediction markets like Polymarket offer none of this.

In ANJ’s own words, prediction markets are “open 24 hours a day, with no built‑in betting limits other than the sums staked, no time limits, no identity checks to verify age.” For a regulator mandated to reduce problem gambling, this is intolerable. The lack of “dispositif d’identification des utilisateurs” (user identification systems) came into sharp focus when ANJ referenced an investigation by the Paris prosecutor’s cybercrime unit, which found no adequate identity controls in Polymarket’s European‑facing interfaces. Without knowing who is betting, regulators cannot enforce age restrictions or track excessive play; without caps, losses can mount quickly for impulsive users.

Addiction isn’t the only concern. ANJ also points to integrity risks – the possibility that some prediction contracts might be manipulated by insiders. The French press reported the authority’s suspicion that a weather station at Charles de Gaulle airport may have been tampered with to influence the outcome of a temperature‑based market on Polymarket. Even without a public forensic report, that allegation illustrates the regulator’s wider worry: when you invite people to bet on discrete data points, those with physical or informational access to the underlying systems may be tempted to alter reality for profit.

Polymarket’s Countermoves: Partial Compliance Without a License

Polymarket has not simply ignored ANJ. Under pressure, its operator introduced IP‑geoblocking for French users, stopped accepting French residents as players, and later updated its global platform rules to forbid three specific forms of insider trading: using illicitly obtained confidential information, trading based on illegal disclosures, and betting by individuals who can directly influence an event’s outcome. These changes aim to address manipulation concerns and align the platform more closely with standards applied in regulated financial markets. They also show that Polymarket is responsive to reputational risk.

At the same time, the platform has tried to preserve a foothold in France by keeping “view‑only mode” open. French users, like those in the United States, can still access Polymarket’s pages to see prices and probabilities, but they cannot place new trades. Polymarket’s spokesperson has pitched this as a way for users to “access critical information about the events that matter most to them,” emphasizing the informational value of prediction market prices. In effect, the operator is trying to separate the data layer – a public signal about collective expectations – from the transactional layer that regulators call gambling.

From ANJ’s standpoint, these steps are not enough. Geoblocking that can be bypassed via VPN, user interfaces that show markets even without allowing local bets, and internal rules against insider trading do not meet the threshold for a French gambling license, nor do they deliver the full suite of consumer protections required of regulated operators. Crucially, Polymarket has not obtained any ANJ authorization; under French law, there is currently no licensing pathway for real‑money prediction markets at all. That means that, however diligently Polymarket tweaks its rules, it remains structurally illegal to offer its core service to French residents.

Administrative Power vs. Judicial Review: How Settled Is the Legal Status?

One nuance that matters to lawyers and policy analysts: ANJ’s classification of prediction markets as illegal gambling in France is an administrative determination, not a court judgment. The regulator has extensive powers to issue warnings, block payment flows, order ISP‑level site blocking, and maintain a blacklist of illegal operators. It has exercised all of these in relation to Polymarket. Yet as of mid‑2026, there is no public French court ruling specifically holding that Polymarket violates gambling law. The legal status is de facto clear – the service is treated as illegal – but still theoretically contestable before a judge.

In practice, operators rarely force that confrontation. Challenging a national gambling regulator in court is costly, slow, and may trigger broader scrutiny of business operations. Polymarket’s own history with regulators illustrates the point: in the United States, it settled with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in 2022 over unregistered event contracts, agreeing to block U.S. users and come into compliance. In Europe, where there is no unified “prediction market license” and national authorities take a tough line, the rational business decision has often been to accept bans and geoblocks rather than litigate. The result is a body of administrative practice that, while not codified in case law, carries strong practical force.

“Fortress Europe”: The Wider Regulatory Pattern Around Prediction Markets

France’s posture on Polymarket is part of a much larger shift across Europe. Legal analyses published in 2025 and 2026 describe a near‑continental consensus: prediction market contracts offered to retail investors, particularly when structured as binary options on real‑world events, are prohibited or heavily restricted across most EU jurisdictions. Regulators in Belgium, Poland, Italy and others followed France’s early moves with their own bans, often framing these platforms as unlicensed gambling rather than financial instruments. A cross‑regulator initiative in 2026 saw authorities from nine countries – including France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain – pledge coordinated action against prominent prediction operators, explicitly citing gambling risks.

At the European level, the securities watchdog ESMA has added weight to this view. In July 2026 it stated that event contracts with binary payouts, sold to retail users, may have been illegal to market in the EU for years and should be treated as prohibited products. That pronouncement does not itself rewrite national gambling codes, but it reinforces the interpretation that prediction markets are neither harmless entertainment nor benign derivatives. They sit on the border between speculation and gambling, and in Europe, that border is being guarded aggressively. Commentators have described this emerging regime as “Fortress Europe” for prediction markets: a space where such platforms thrive in the U.S. but are systematically driven out of reach of European retail users.

Innovation vs. Protection: What the French Block Signals Going Forward

For technologists and investors, the French block on Polymarket crystallizes a broader tension. Prediction markets appeal to those who believe markets can aggregate dispersed information and improve public forecasting; they are promoted as tools for better policy, more accurate election expectations, even improved corporate decision‑making. Yet when those markets are open to the general public, with real money at stake and no guardrails, regulators increasingly see them through a different lens: as high‑velocity gambling venues that amplify addiction and integrity risk.

France’s stance, backed by ANJ’s formal declarations and enforcement actions, leaves little room for ambiguity on its territory. Real‑money prediction markets are treated like unlicensed casinos, not like experimental financial platforms. Unless French law evolves to create a new licensing category with tailored safeguards, the only legally stable option for operators like Polymarket is to exclude French users entirely – not just via “view‑only” interfaces, but at the network level, as ANJ has now required. For French residents intrigued by prediction markets, the message is blunt: these products are, for the time being, off‑limits.