France Orders Nationwide ISP Block on Polymarket, Company Prepares Court Challenge

Why France moved to block the site

The order came from France’s gaming regulator, ANJ, which instructed providers to restrict access to Polymarket before the FIFA World Cup final. According to the source report, the regulator’s position is that the platform was still promoting unauthorized betting by showing live market odds.

French authorities also raised broader concerns about consumer protection. Regulators warned that some prediction markets could expose users to financial risk and create openings for market manipulation. The move suggests officials view the display of betting-style probabilities and odds as part of the regulated activity, not merely as neutral information.

Polymarket’s position

Polymarket argues the French action goes too far. The company says it stopped allowing users in France to place bets in late 2024, but continued to offer market data and event probabilities. On that basis, it plans to contest the nationwide block through the French court system.

The core disagreement is whether informational access should be regulated the same way as a platform that still accepts wagers. Polymarket’s position, as described in the source article, is that many people visit the site to follow probability signals and event-based data rather than to place trades.

A dispute over access, not just trading

The case is no longer limited to the question of active betting. It now turns on whether a site can remain visible in France if local users are only able to view market information. That distinction appears central to Polymarket’s legal pushback.

At the same time, the source report said French visitors continued to access the platform in large numbers during June, despite the earlier trading restrictions. That traffic underlines the level of interest in prediction-based information and may help explain why regulators acted before a major sports event.

Wider pressure on prediction markets

The French action comes amid broader scrutiny of prediction markets in Europe and in several U.S. states. Regulators have increasingly questioned whether these products function more like financial markets or gambling services, especially when they involve real-money exposure tied to public events.

The issue is gaining commercial importance as companies such as Robinhood and Coinbase see prediction markets as a growing business opportunity. For that reason, the dispute in France may become an important test of how authorities balance innovation, public demand, and consumer-protection concerns when these platforms continue to publish odds and probabilities even after local trading is restricted.

In that sense, the French block is not just about one website. It reflects a wider policy debate over whether event-based market data can be separated from the wagering activity that produces it, and how far regulators can go when they decide the two are inseparable.