France orders ISPs to block access to Polymarket

France’s National Gambling Authority (ANJ) has ordered internet service providers to block access to the popular Polymarket prediction market website.

ANJ said that Polymarket's webpage would be blocked on French territory, adding to a November 2024 ban on financial transactions to the site.

While Polymarket had geo-blocked access in France in 2024, ANJ warned that this measure has been circumvented in practice.

In fact, visits from French internet addresses to Polymarket have been rising over the past two years, reaching 578,751 visits and 205,057 unique visitors last month.

ANJ warned that Polymarket lacks the protective mechanisms found in the legal gambling market and that some of the bets even appear to be rigged.  

“For example, bets on the weather revealed that weather sensors may have been hacked,” it said. 

“An investigation into this matter was launched on May 4, 2026, by the cybercrime unit of the Paris Public Prosecutor's Office and entrusted to the OFAC (Office for Combating Cybercrime).”

“This case revealed the absence, on the Polymarket platforms available to French and European users, of a user identification system to verify their integrity.”

France is one of a number of European countries that restrict or block access to online prediction markets, including Germany, Italy and Spain.

Malta’s Economy Minister Silvio Schembri said in March that the country is actively exploring  legal framework that would provide regulatory clarity to prediction markets.