France orders ISPs to block Polymarket after geofence breach

On July 17, 2026 France’s gambling regulator, the Autorité nationale des jeux (ANJ), ordered internet service providers to block access to the prediction-market platform Polymarket. The order followed evidence that the platform’s front end continued to reach a large French audience despite earlier transaction restrictions.

The ANJ cited Similarweb data indicating Polymarket received 578,751 visits and 205,057 unique French visitors in June 2026. The regulator first raised concerns in November 2024 and asked Adventure One QSS Inc., identified as Polymarket’s Panamanian operator, to limit access. The operator implemented a geoblock that the ANJ said prevented financial transactions from French territory but did not stop users from viewing live odds and market information.

Polymarket’s public documentation lists France as ‘close-only’ on both the front end and API, allowing users to close existing positions but not open new ones. The platform describes its system as a hybrid matching model: orders are matched off-chain and matched trades settle through an exchange contract on the Polygon blockchain. Geographic eligibility checks run through infrastructure on polymarket.com, and trading is presented as non-custodial.

The ANJ’s order targets the website and service interface rather than Polymarket’s on-chain settlement contracts. The regulator identified dynamically updated odds on the homepage as promotional content that continued to attract French users. Under Article 61 of French gambling law, after statutory notice and response periods the ANJ can require access providers to block specified illegal online interfaces and request that search engines or directories stop referencing them. The regulator said it used that authority to block 1,290 URLs linked to illegal gambling in 2025.

In February 2026 the ANJ published a policy classifying prediction markets as unauthorized gambling in France. The regulator cited continuous online access, rapid distribution, absent identity and age verification, and lower consumer protections compared with licensed operators. The policy named addiction and integrity risks as grounds for restricting access.

The ANJ listed 12 European jurisdictions that had restricted or blocked prediction markets: Germany, Belgium, Romania, Switzerland, Poland, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Ukraine and the Czech Republic. On May 26, 2026 Spain’s gambling regulator ordered the Polymarket and US-based Kalshi websites blocked on an interim basis while it examined possible unlicensed gambling, citing concerns about licensing, identity checks, protections for minors and self-exclusion measures.

The ANJ framed its order as targeting the distribution layers that connect ordinary customers to the market: the public website used for discovery, operator-controlled order submission, off-chain matching, geographic eligibility checks and compliance systems. Polymarket and other prediction-market operators may adjust front-end controls, add verification steps or pursue national licences in response to different regulatory regimes across Europe.