France upgrades prediction market regulators to block access to Polymarket

PANews July 18, according to Straitstimes, the French National Gaming Authority (ANJ) announced that, effective July 17, it has restricted access within France to the prediction market platform Polymarket, further strengthening its oversight of the platform.

Previously, France had banned French accounts from conducting financial transactions with Polymarket in November 2024, but regulators said the platform’s website remained accessible normally, and user engagement continued to rise. Therefore, they decided to take stricter measures by directly blocking the website entry points.

ANJ said Polymarket, as an event prediction market, allows users to place bets around the outcomes of future events and displays in real time how odds for different events change. Regulators believe that real-time odds display itself may constitute promotion of an unauthorized gambling service. “Promoting an unauthorized betting or gambling website in any form constitutes a criminal offense.” ANJ added that the relevant illegal conduct could face fines of up to €100k.

French regulators said that despite prior restrictions on the flow of funds, Polymarket’s traffic in France continued to grow. In June this year, visits from French internet addresses reached 578,751 times, indicating that user demand did not decline noticeably due to the transaction restrictions.