France, Czech Republic move to block Polymarket

• France’s ANJ ordered ISPs to block Polymarket on 16 July, warning that advertising the platform carries fines of up to €100,000 ($114,000).
• The Czech Republic’s Ministry of Finance gave ISPs 15 days to cut access after adding Polymarket to its unauthorised games list on 13 July.
• Gibraltar has already licensed prediction market operators under a dedicated framework, and Malta is drafting similar rules, a sharply different approach to France and Czechia’s blocks.

France and the Czech Republic have each ordered internet providers to cut off Polymarket, pushing the tally of European jurisdictions restricting the platform higher still.

The ANJ’s president ordered the French block on 16 July, publishing the regulator’s statement the following day, and Czech authorities moved first, placing Polymarket on the Ministry of Finance’s list of unauthorised internet games on 13 July.

The product at the centre of it all trades contracts on real-world outcomes, elections, rate decisions, award shows, treating uncertainty itself as the asset class.

Intercontinental Exchange, which owns the New York Stock Exchange, clearly sees something worth backing. It has committed close to $2 billion to Polymarket since October 2025, valuing the platform at roughly $8 billion, and now distributes its data to institutional clients.

Monthly volume sits somewhere between $10 billion and $11 billion, with full-year 2025 turnover projected at roughly $220 billion. The platform opened fully to US users in May, after CFTC clearance tied to its 2025 acquisition of licensed exchange QCEX.

France tightens grip

Paris isn’t just blocking access, it’s leaning on the advertising rules too. The ANJ said promoting an unlicensed betting site remains a criminal matter in its own right, punishable by a fine of up to €100,000 ($114,000).

The regulator’s patience had already worn thin. ANJ first flagged Polymarket in November 2024, and an earlier geoblocking measure meant to stop French transactions was, in the regulator’s words, “circumvented” in practice.

The final trigger came from elsewhere: Météo-France complained that weather sensors tied to weather-based bets may have been tampered with, prompting the Paris prosecutor’s cybercrime unit to open an investigation on 4 May.

Enforcement may still prove difficult. Polymarket drew 578,751 visits and 205,057 unique visitors from France in June alone, according to the ANJ’s own figures.

France now sits alongside Germany, Italy and Spain, all of which have blocked Kalshi and Polymarket in recent months.

Czech 15-day deadline

Czech officials have taken direct aim at Polymarket’s favourite defence, that its “contracts” and “returns” aren’t bets and winnings at all.

The Ministry of Finance’s position is that the label doesn’t change what’s happening on the platform. ISPs have until roughly the end of the month to make access disappear.

The Institute for Gambling Regulation, the country’s gambling trade body, backed the call. Director Jan Řehola didn’t mince words:

“Player protection, the prevention of money laundering and effective market supervision must not depend on what an operator chooses to call its product.”

Czechia joins a list that already runs through the Netherlands, where the Kansspelautoriteit ordered a shutdown from 17 February, plus Belgium, Switzerland, Poland, Greece, Cyprus, Portugal and Ukraine.

Romania’s regulator won in court to keep its own ban standing, extending a divide ESMA has flagged as a growing split across the bloc’s approach to the sector.

Gibraltar and Malta diverge

Two jurisdictions are betting the other way. Gibraltar’s Prediction Market Regulations 2026, in force since 13 July, carve the sector out of general gambling law rather than banning it outright.

It’s the first purpose-built regime of its kind anywhere. ADI Predictstreet and WagerWire’s Wire Markets are already operating or approved in principle under it.

Nigel Feetham, Gibraltar’s Minister for Justice, Trade and Industry, said:

“Today we are the first in the world to introduce a bespoke framework for prediction markets.”

Malta looks to be building toward the same conclusion, though nothing is law yet. Prime Minister Robert Abela has pledged to give the Malta Gaming Authority licensing power over the sector.

Economy Minister Silvio Schembri has confirmed officials are drafting a regime that would sit outside both gambling and financial services law, pending parliamentary approval. Get it through, and Malta becomes the first EU state to treat prediction markets as their own category.

Two regulatory instincts are colliding here. One side treats a contract that pays out on a coin-flip outcome as a bet, full stop, and reaches for the block button. The other reads the same product and sees a licensing opportunity, provided the operator can prove market integrity and keep the money clean.

Neither side has had to test its approach against the other yet, since Polymarket hasn’t tried operating openly out of Gibraltar while blocked next door in France. That collision, when it comes, will say more about where prediction markets end up in Europe than any single ISP block does today.