Polymarket becomes inaccessible in France after ANJ block

Polymarket is now becoming inaccessible in France after the Autorité nationale des Jeux (ANJ), the national gambling authority, instructed operators to block the website’s address.

Anyone who follows the news closely is likely to have heard of Polymarket, a prediction platform offering bets on events including World Cup matches, the Nobel Peace Prize, wars and the release of Google’s next AI model. Although the service attracts considerable attention, it is not authorised in France. As a recent statement from the Autorité nationale des Jeux points out, the company behind Polymarket had already introduced geographical restrictions on transactions from France after receiving formal notice. However, the ANJ says these restrictions were being bypassed.

Despite this transaction “block”, Polymarket was still receiving hundreds of thousands of visits from within France. According to figures cited by the ANJ, the platform recorded 578,751 visits and 205,057 unique visitors from mainland France in June. The authority has therefore opted for a stricter measure against Polymarket by imposing an administrative block on its address.

“On 16 July 2026, the president of the Autorité nationale des Jeux ordered French internet service providers to block access to the Polymarket website. Given its particularly large audience, this website promotes an illegal gambling offering”, the ANJ stated in its press release.

A complete block on Polymarket in France

“The website’s homepage, which displays in real time and dynamically the odds linked to the various events on which bets may be placed, is a major channel for distributing and promoting Polymarket’s offerings, even though its activity is not authorised in France”, the ANJ said in its statement.

Questions over betting integrity

The regulator also referred to bets that “appeared to have been manipulated”, particularly weather-related wagers, which are being investigated by the cybercrime unit of the Paris public prosecutor’s office. The gambling watchdog also said that the investigation found Polymarket did not have “a user identification system to ensure their integrity”.