Polymarket to sue after France orders site block

Polymarket said it will challenge an order from the Autorité Nationale des Jeux (ANJ) that required French internet providers to block access to the prediction market’s website. The ANJ issued the order last week ahead of the World Cup final.

The company says it disabled trading for French accounts in November 2024 and continued to allow French users to view markets and odds for informational purposes only.

The regulator said the site ‘is promoting an illegal gambling and betting offering', warned users could face significant gambling losses and said some wagers could be manipulated. The ANJ cited web-traffic figures showing 578,751 visits from 205,057 unique visitors in France in June, which it said indicate continued use from France. The regulator also said Polymarket’s homepage displays live odds in view-only mode and characterized that as advertising an unauthorized gambling service.

Polymarket described the order as ‘sudden' and said the view mode is intended to provide probabilities and information rather than facilitate trades. The company called the block surprising because it affects people who use the site only for information.

“We are proud that most people come to Polymarket solely to learn the probability of future events relevant to their everyday life with no intention to trade,” the firm added, and it announced on Wednesday that it will pursue legal remedies in France.

The planned court challenge asks a French court to rule on whether regulators can require internet-service-level blocking of a site that restricts active participation for a country but continues to publish odds and market data for public viewing.

Regulators in parts of Europe and several U.S. states have taken steps to restrict similar prediction-market services on the grounds that they amount to gambling.