France is stepping up its fight against Polymarket. The country’s gambling authority, the Autorité Nationale Des Jeux (ANJ), has now ordered internet service providers to block access to the prediction market’s website entirely, after a previous attempt to stop French users from participating on the platform clearly did not work.
This is not the first time the ANJ has gone after Polymarket. Back in November 2024, the agency placed a block on financial transactions from French residents. But as reported by Engadget, that measure did little to slow things down. In June 2026 alone, Polymarket recorded 578,751 visits from France, including 205,057 unique visitors. Users were simply working around the transaction block, and the platform kept growing in the country regardless.
The ANJ’s position is straightforward: it considers Polymarket an illegal gambling site. With the earlier ban failing to stick, the regulator is now trying a more blunt approach by cutting off access at the network level.
The new rules also carry financial teeth. Anyone caught advertising an unlicensed betting or gambling site in France could face fines of up to 100,000 euros, roughly $114,000. That signals the ANJ is not just targeting the platform itself but also anyone helping to promote it to French audiences.
France is not alone in pushing back against prediction markets. The pressure on platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi is building across multiple countries and regions at the same time:
- Spain has ordered ISPs to block both Polymarket and Kalshi while the government investigates whether they break local gambling laws.
- In the US, Minnesota passed a bill banning prediction markets from operating in the state.
- Several other US states are pursuing lawsuits against both Polymarket and Kalshi.
The broader issue here is a regulatory one. Prediction markets occupy a gray area that traditional gambling laws were never written to address. They blend elements of financial trading with outcome-based betting, and regulators around the world are still figuring out how to categorize them. In the US, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has been wrestling with how much oversight it should have over these platforms for years.
What makes France’s situation particularly telling is that a transaction ban was not enough. Users found workarounds, likely through VPNs or crypto payments, and the platform continued to grow. An ISP-level block is harder to get around for casual users, but determined ones will still find a way. It raises a real question about how effective these measures actually are when the underlying demand does not go away.
For Polymarket, which saw a significant spike in traffic around the 2024 US election, the regulatory heat from Europe adds another complication to its long-term ambitions. The platform is already restricted in the US for American users. Losing access across European markets would further limit where it can actually operate without legal risk.