Polymarket Fights a National Ban for the First Time, and Not Over Betting

The president of the Autorité Nationale des Jeux (ANJ), France's gambling regulator, ordered internet service providers to block access to Polymarket and its variant domains on 16 Jul, following an enquiry that began in November 2024 into Adventure One QSS Inc. – the entity that operates Polymarket's international exchange. 

The regulator said the site draws a particularly large French audience and promotes an illegal gambling and betting offering. It cited the risk of significant losses, the possibility that some wagers could be manipulated and bets placed on outcomes where it suspected insider information had been used.

"We intend to challenge this decision through the legal process in France," Polymarket told Sandmark, adding that it was disappointed by what it called a sudden, unilateral decision. Although they disagree with ANJ's action, the spokesperson said France had demonstrated a strong commitment to financial and technological innovation, and that recent discussions with French authorities had been constructive and encouraging.

The company also restated its longstanding position that prediction markets are not gambling. Polymarket said prices are set by market activity rather than an operator, that participants trade directly with each other rather than against the house, and that it holds no position in any market and does not profit from any outcome, in contrast with a gambling operator, which sets odds and profits from the spread.

That is Polymarket's general defence in most jurisdictions. Despite the ANJ framing the case around illegal gambling, the fresh lawsuit is not about whether French users should be allowed to bet on Polymarket. Instead, the dispute centres on whether regulators can block access to a website that, in practice, had become a public source of data rather than a venue for French users to place wagers.

Cybercrime unit is now involved

Polymarket said it remains "in dialogue with the cybercrime unit of the Paris Public Prosecutor's Office," putting a second French authority, this one with criminal rather than administrative powers, alongside the ANJ. The company did not say whether that dialogue relates to the blocking order or to a separate matter.

Compliance record with no exceptions

Polymarket is blocked or restricted in more than 30 jurisdictions, and has never previously contested one of those decisions in court. Belgium blocklisted the platform in January 2025 after it failed to answer three regulatory warnings. Poland added it to a register of prohibited gambling sites the same month. Portugal gave it 48 hours to stop serving local users in January, and the platform went quiet. A Buenos Aires court ordered a nationwide block in March, instructing Apple and Google to pull the app, and no appeal followed.

France itself is the clearest illustration. Polymarket has blocked French users from trading since November 2024 when the ANJ first opened its enquiry. Its answer to the regulator then was to comply.

The company has fought before, but only in the US and only against a state. It sued the Massachusetts attorney general and state gaming officials in federal court in February, arguing that its Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) designation preempts state gambling law. That argument is the one the sector has reached for as US states have moved against event contracts. It does not travel to France, where there is no federal regulator to invoke.

The argument is about access, not bets

What makes the French challenge unusual is what Polymarket is not asking for. It is not seeking the right to take French users. It gave that up 20 months ago.

The company argues instead that the order is disproportionate because trading was already geo-blocked, so the block bites only those visiting the site to read prices rather than to trade. Polymarket said it had kept the site open to French users as an information source and was surprised the regulator moved against the entire domain.

That reframes the dispute. The question before a French court would not be whether prediction markets are gambling, a fight Polymarket has consistently declined to have. It would be whether a gambling regulator may order a price feed taken off the internet.

Named operator sits in Panama

There is a second question, of who exactly would be doing the arguing. Polymarket is run from Manhattan, but Adventure One, the entity named in the French order, is registered in Panama. It took over operator responsibility for the international exchange after the 2022 CFTC settlement that barred US customers from the platform, and was incorporated only months before that handover.

Its resident agent is one Mario García de Paredes, a Panama City lawyer whose firm bears his name, and its listed officers are Panamanian. When NPR visited the law office given as Adventure One's base in Panamanian corporate records in May, it found no trace of either company, and a worker there had not heard of Polymarket or Adventure One. At least 15 other crypto firms use the same address.

A French court would therefore be hearing a challenge on behalf of a company whose registered office is a law firm in Central America, against an order naming that company rather than the New York business whose staff issued this week's statement.

Europe closes in on prediction markets

The timing is not accidental. Nine European regulators announced a joint initiative against unlicensed prediction market platforms shortly before the French order, while Germany, Belgium, Romania, Switzerland, Poland, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Ukraine and the Czech Republic have all imposed restrictions of their own. The Dutch regulator ordered Adventure One to stop serving local users or pay fines in February.

The commercial stakes have grown alongside the pressure. Reuters reported last month that Polymarket's annualized revenue had passed $1bn, and the company returned to the US market late last year through its acquisition of a CFTC-licensed exchange.

The ANJ has spent two years deciding whether Polymarket is a betting site. Polymarket has spent 20 months agreeing that it cannot take French users. What is left to argue about is whether a French citizen may look at a number on a screen.

A Polymarket spokesperson provided the statement above through communications firm Hanbury Strategy. The ANJ did not respond to a request for comment, while a separate enquiry sent to Gasthalter & Co., which also handles media relations for Polymarket, went unanswered.