France has blocked Polymarket from being viewed across the country. But the move isn't France's first attempt to keep residents away from the platform.
- In November 2024, the Autorité nationale des jeux, France's gambling regulator, commonly known as the ANJ, warned Adventure One QSS Inc., the company it identifies as Polymarket's operator, that the platform appeared to be offering illegal gambling.
- Polymarket responded back then by blocking financial transactions from French users, although the regulator said some people continued to find ways around the restriction.
The platform's homepage remained available, allowing visitors to watch live odds without officially placing bets.
And that, apparently, became a problem of its own.
On July 16, the ANJ ordered French internet providers to block the whole website, arguing that its constantly updating prices effectively advertised an illegal gambling service.
- Under French law, promoting an unauthorized betting site, or publishing its odds to promote it, can carry a fine of as much as €100,000, or about $116,000.
- The earlier restriction had also done little to stop people from looking.
- Polymarket recorded 578,751 visits from 205,057 unique French visitors in June, according to Similarweb, a web-traffic analytics company cited by the ANJ.
Other controversies
France's regulator also pointed to a stranger problem than gambling losses. Météo-France, France's national weather service, filed a police complaint after unusual temperature spikes at Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris's main international airport, helped settle several Polymarket weather bets.
French authorities are investigating whether someone physically interfered with a temperature sensor to influence the results.
On one April evening, the recorded temperature suddenly rose by about five degrees Celsius.
Three wallets reportedly made more than $280,000 by betting on the outcome, while one anonymous trader earned about $21,000 after placing a wager shortly before the spike.
- Polymarket later stopped using that sensor but didn't cancel the settled bets.
The ANJ said the incident also exposed the absence of identity checks on the version of Polymarket available to European users, making it difficult to determine who was placing the suspicious bets.