rewrite this title France doubles down on restricting access to Polymarket – Engadget

France is doubling down on preventative measures for its citizens trying to access Polymarket. The Autorité Nationale Des Jeux (ANJ), the country’s independent regulatory authority in charge of licensed gambling and betting games, announced this week that it ordered internet service providers to block access to Polymarket. 

The ANJ’s latest decision follows its previous regulatory action from November 2024 that placed a geoblock on any financial transactions from French residents on the Polymarket website. Despite this ban on transactions, the agency said that the platform continued to grow in France thanks to users circumventing the block. According to ANJ, Polymarket saw 578,751 visits, 205,057 of which were unique visits, in the month of June from French residents. Now the ANJ wants to crack down harder on Polymarket, again emphasizing that the platform is considered an illegal gambling site.

According to the ANJ’s latest move, anyone caught advertising an unauthorized betting or gambling site could be fined up to 100,000 euros, or around $114,000. In the neighboring Spain, the government also ordered to block access to both Polymarket and Kalshi while it investigates if these sites break the country’s gambling laws. In the US, Minnesota passed a bill that bans prediction markets from operating in the state, while other states are filing lawsuits against Polymarket and Kalshi.