France Blocks Polymarket: Criminal Liability for Advertising and a Wave of Bans in Europe

The French National Gambling Authority (ANJ) has blocked access to the Polymarket prediction platform at the ISP level nationwide. The service is classified as an illegal operator running without a license.

Previously, the regulator limited its actions to blocking financial transactions, but users continued to bypass these restrictions in droves. In June 2026 alone, traffic from France to the platform exceeded 578,000 visits. This substantial growth prompted the ANJ to shift from half-measures to a complete domain block.

The ANJ has officially equated the mere display of live updating quotes to the illegal advertising of gambling games. In France, any PR for Polymarket, referral links, or creatives featuring the platform's interface now risks not just a ban, but criminal liability and a fine of up to 100,000 euros.

Why Regulators Are Pressuring Prediction Markets

In Europe, betting on politics, sports, and economics is viewed as unlicensed gambling. One of the reasons for the ban was a recent scandal where hackers compromised a Meteo-France weather balloon to distort weather data and win a massive payout on Polymarket. For regulators, this became the final argument proving that crypto-based prediction platforms create tangible security threats.

Geography of Bans in Europe

Access to Polymarket is already restricted or completely blocked at the provider level across multiple countries:

Full Block: Belgium, Poland, Italy, Germany, United Kingdom.

Restrictions and Temporary Bans: Portugal, Hungary, Romania, Switzerland, Netherlands, Greece, Spain, Czech Republic, Ukraine.

What This Means for Affiliate Marketing

For media buyers, this introduces severe risks and tight constraints:

High Risks. Attempts to drive traffic to Polymarket or its clones within the specified countries will result in rapid account bans across ad networks, as well as legal complications.

Shift of Focus. The European market is effectively closed for these types of offers. While the platform remains active in other regions, generating massive volume from them is no longer viable.

Strict Regulatory Policies. As long as the EU lacks a unified framework for prediction markets, national regulators will continue to operate on a "ban and block" basis.