Polymarket Takes France to Court After ANJ Pulls the Plug on Its Website

Key Points

• The ANJ in France banned Polymarket’s complete website on 16 July 2026 due to illegal gambling promotion and a risk of €100,000 risk.
• Polymarket claims it ended its trading in France by November 2024 but left the site accessible for information purposes only; Polymarket claims that the ban issued by the ANJ affects individuals accessing the site just to access information about the markets.
• A criminal probe is open in France over suspected manipulation of weather data used to settle Polymarket bets, adding a second legal front beyond the gambling classification dispute.

Polymarket Takes France to Court After ANJ Orders Full Website Block

Prediction markets have been edging into legal grey zones for months across Europe. France just drew a hard line, and Polymarket is walking straight into it.

Five days after the order was issued by the French gambling regulatory body, the Autorité nationale des jeux (ANJ), directing internet service providers to block access to Polymarket, the trading site announced on 22nd July 2026 that it will challenge the move through French courtrooms. The reaction was swift. “We are disappointed by the French gaming authority’s (ANJ’s) unilateral move to shut down our website,” said the Polymarket press statement as published by Reuters, “We intend to challenge this decision in French courtrooms.”

The dispute is set for the courtroom as no continental regulatory body has been able to provide a conclusive answer: Is it an illegal gambling advertisement if one shows market prices in real time on a computer screen while users are unable to trade themselves?

The Order France Could Not Walk Back

The ANJ’s blocking order was signed by its president on 16 July 2026, with the announcement published the following day. It instructed French ISPs to deny access to all Polymarket sites operated by Adventure One QSS Inc. The stated reason: the platform “promotes an illegal gambling and betting offering” by displaying real-time prices on elections, weather, sports, and other events.

Polymarket had actually pulled trading access for French users back in November 2024, following an earlier ANJ warning. That partial measure failed to satisfy the regulator. Citing Similarweb data, the ANJ reported that Polymarket still recorded 578,751 visits from France in June alone, including 205,057 unique users. The numbers told the regulator something clear: the platform’s reach inside France had not meaningfully shrunk.

The offense of promoting an unauthorized betting or gambling website is punishable by a fine up to 100,000 euros according to French law. ANJ’s contention was that Polymarket’s homepage which shows real-time odds acts as one such channel for promotion of gambling activities.

The platform pushed back on that framing. “We were therefore surprised at the ANJ decision to block access to our entire website because their measure targets people going to Polymarket purely for information, not to trade,” the company said, adding that most visitors arrive to gauge probabilities on real-world events rather than to place wagers. Polymarket also confirmed that “discussions with the ANJ have been constructive and encouraging,” while making clear it intends to pursue the legal challenge in parallel.

A Line France Won’t Let Polymarket Cross

French scrutiny of Polymarket did not begin in July. The ANJ opened its examination during the 2024 US presidential election period, after reports surfaced that a French trader had made approximately $50 million from wagers linked to Donald Trump’s victory. By February 2026, the regulator had gone public with a formal position: prediction sites are classified as illegal gambling under French law, not financial services.

The ANJ’s concern went beyond transactions. It argued that the trading-style language used by platforms like Polymarket could create an “illusion of competence” for users, while weak identity checks, continuous access, and the absence of stake limits heightened addiction risks. Those concerns guided the February public warning and ultimately the July block.

Market intelligence firm Blask tracked a 973.6% year-on-year rise in its prediction market index for France, measuring non-branded search activity that reflects informed public interest in the category, not direct site visits. That surge gave regulators data to justify the harder line.

Weather Sensors, Hacked Data, and a Criminal Probe

Beyond the gambling classification argument, Polymarket faces a separate and more serious legal exposure in France. A criminal investigation has been launched by prosecutors into the issue of possible manipulation of weather data for resolving wagers on the platform.

In April 2026, it became evident that there were some peculiarities in the readings on temperatures at Charles de Gaulle airport, which coincided with high-value Polymarket wagers that depend on weather results. A complaint from Météo-France was made, as there were “physical findings on one of our instruments,” indicating the manipulation of sensors. A criminal investigation was launched on 4 May.

The ANJ used the case to highlight a structural vulnerability in prediction markets that rely on single real-world data sources: if that source is corrupted, the contract result, and the payout, follow the corrupted data. The regulator also pressed the absence of know-your-customer checks, pointing out that neither French nor European users face adequate identity verification before accessing Polymarket’s markets.

Polymarket confirmed it remains in talks with French officials and the Paris prosecutor’s cybercrime unit, describing those discussions as ongoing.

Gambling or Something Else Entirely?

Polymarket’s core legal argument rests on how its contracts should be classified. The company describes its markets as blockchain-based financial instruments, priced by user activity rather than set by an operator. “Prices are determined by market activity, not set by an operator, and participants trade directly with one another in a peer-to-peer structure,” it said. Polymarket also stressed that it “holds no position in any market and does not profit from any outcome.”

French authorities take the opposite view. For the ANJ, the defining features are a stake, an uncertain outcome, and a payout, which place prediction contracts firmly inside gambling law regardless of the technology used. The regulator’s February 2026 position made that explicit, rejecting the financial instrument framing.

The annualized revenues of Polymarket have topped $1 billion, a source close to its financials has told Reuters. This kind of size makes it comparable with legal betting companies and strengthens the case that similar economic instruments should bear similar regulatory requirements. Legal companies in France spend on compliance, AML controls, responsible gaming services, and industry-specific tax; a platform performing a similar economic role but without these expenditures forms a competitive disadvantage for regulators.

Italy, Romania, and the Rest of the Queue

France is not alone in taking such an action. The online gambling website Polymarket was blocked in Italy twice in July 2026 and in October 2025 due to actions by the Customs and Monopolies Agency, although it had been previously overturned by the Regional Administrative Court of Lazio in December. That second Italian block places the platform in a position where a court once ruled in its favour, yet regulators have returned with a fresh action.

Romania’s National Gambling Office blacklisted Polymarket in October 2025, and a court subsequently rejected the platform’s request to suspend that measure. Trading volume on Polymarket contracts tied to Romanian elections had exceeded $600 million, with markets linked to Bucharest local elections passing $15 million. Those figures made it difficult for the ONJN to treat the platform as merely informational.

Belgium moved first among European nations, placing Polymarket on its blacklist in January 2025. Hungary and Portugal followed in January 2026. The Netherlands threatened enforcement action in February. Spain ordered precautionary blocking of both Polymarket and rival Kalshi in May 2026. The ANJ’s July 2026 statement listed Germany, Romania, Switzerland, Poland, Greece, Italy, Ukraine, and the Czech Republic among jurisdictions that have restricted prediction markets.

The practical limits of blocking are real. VPNs, mirror domains, and cryptocurrency payment rails can blunt the effects of ISP-level restrictions. Polymarket’s World Cup 2026 market approached $2 billion in trading volume, indicating that blockades have not materially suppressed participation from determined users. Even within France, 578,751 visits in a single month after transaction restrictions had already been in place demonstrate exactly that point.

Expert Analysis

France’s legal challenge from Polymarket carries consequences well beyond a single platform’s access dispute. If a court accepts that displaying market information without enabling trading falls outside the definition of gambling promotion, it would narrow the scope of future regulatory blocking orders significantly. If the court upholds the ANJ’s position, every prediction market displaying live odds to European audiences faces the same exposure, regardless of whether those users can trade.

The weather sensor investigation runs parallel and independently. A finding of deliberate manipulation would give regulators across Europe a concrete integrity failure to cite, strengthening the case for treating single-data-source prediction markets as a category requiring specific consumer protections rather than a blanket ban.

Malta and Gibraltar are already moving toward regulatory frameworks that would bring prediction markets inside formal licensing regimes. Whether that approach reaches France depends partly on what Polymarket’s legal challenge produces. A court ruling is not just a verdict on one company’s website access. It sets the terms under which an entire product category either earns regulatory legitimacy in Europe or faces permanent exclusion from it.