France's regulator ANJ (Autorité Nationale des Jeux) formally ordered internet service providers Orange, SFR, Bouygues Telecom and Free to block access to Polymarket.com on 16 July 2026, classifying the site as an illegal gambling offering. In parallel Italy's ADM (Agenzia delle Dogane e dei Monopoli) added Polymarket to a fresh blacklist of 293 domains, with Italian ISPs required to complete the block by 27 July 2026. It is the first coordinated blocking of a prediction platform by two EU regulators in a single week.
Before July 2026 Polymarket was already partially unavailable in France: the platform had self-imposed a payment geoblock from French territory in November 2024 after an initial ANJ notice. According to the regulator itself, in June 2026 the site logged 578,751 visits from France and 205,057 unique French visitors — a 479% jump over two years, despite that technical obstacle. In Italy, Polymarket was first blacked out on 22 October 2025; the Regional Administrative Court (TAR Lazio) rejected the suspension request on 4 November 2025, upholding ADM's power under Article 102 of Law-Decree 104/2020. The July 2026 order is the second Italian blackout, and Kalshi — the other major prediction platform — was swept into the same round of bans.
In our view the pivotal point here is not the block of a single website but the drawing of a new line: prediction platforms are now officially treated as gambling in an EU jurisdiction, not as a "financial instrument". ANJ grounds the decision in the absence of licensing safeguards — stake limits, self-exclusion tools and a basic age-verification procedure. ADM relies on Article 102 of Law-Decree 104/2020, which lets the agency require ISPs to redirect traffic from unlicensed sites to the regulator's official landing page.
To us this step continues the same line as other July 2026 decisions. A week before 27 July the UKGC published its £4.75 million settlement with Evolution AB — a case explicitly about supplier-side control failures; Sweden's Spelinspektionen moved Spelpaus to a real-time API from 1 August 2026; and earlier the AMLA consultation on EU-wide AML standards named faster customer checks as a priority. The Polymarket block puts licensing on that same shelf: what the platform calls itself doesn't matter — what protections it actually gives the player does.
It is telling that ADM added Kalshi — another major prediction platform — to the same round of 293 domains. That is a signal to the sector: platforms of this class are now treated as a category, not one by one, and each EU jurisdiction expects local licensing. Weather-based bets, in particular temperature markets, are already the subject of a Paris cybercrime investigation opened on 4 May 2026, after a complaint from Météo-France alleging that temperature sensors had been physically or digitally tampered with to sway market resolutions.
For a player in France or Italy the immediate effect is straightforward: any attempt to reach polymarket.com from a French or Italian IP now redirects to the regulator's official page. Under French rules, promoting an unauthorised gambling platform is a criminal offence carrying fines of up to €100,000. Polymarket has publicly said it will challenge the ANJ order, but the block remains in force for now. We have covered the baseline layer of protection that licensed operators are meant to provide — KYC at registration — separately; the missing baseline is what the EU regulators seized on as their formal justification.
What does the block technically mean for players in France and Italy?
It is a DNS-level block enforced at the ISP: any attempt to open polymarket.com from a local network is automatically redirected to the regulator's official landing page. No software or setting change is needed on the operator's side — the site simply becomes unreachable. Using a VPN to bypass the block remains legally risky: promoting illegal gambling in France carries a fine of up to €100,000, and participating in it can be treated as a separate offence.
Why do ANJ and ADM treat Polymarket as gambling rather than a financial instrument?
Both regulators start from the same premise: on the platform a player puts money on the outcome of an event that does not depend on their own choice or skill but on an external coincidence — exactly like a sports bet. The absence of stake limits, self-exclusion tools and full KYC at the level of a licensed operator closes off Polymarket's route to a "financial market" classification in the EU. In February 2026 the ANJ issued a separate decision placing every prediction platform in the category of illegal gambling sites in France.
Does this affect players in other EU jurisdictions?
Not directly — the ANJ and ADM orders apply only in France and Italy. Indirectly, yes: a coordinated block by two EU regulators in a single week sets a precedent that Germany's GGL, the Dutch KSA and Sweden's Spelinspektionen are likely to study closely. We expect similar action against prediction platforms in other EU countries within 6–12 months — especially in the wake of the Dutch structured income check and the German tiered stake structure for slots.
What legal alternatives remain for event betting in the EU?
In France, only ANJ-licensed operators for sports betting, poker and horse racing (online casino is prohibited in FR). In Italy, ADM-licensed bookmakers and casinos. In Britain, UKGC-licensed operators. A licensed bookmaker gives you the same baseline experience — stake limits, responsible-gambling tools, KYC — without the risk of landing on the regulator's official page when you try to withdraw. The rule of thumb: verify the licence number directly on the regulator's own website, not the operator's word for it.
As of 27 July 2026, if you hold a Polymarket balance from a French or Italian IP: check the withdrawal status through whatever channels are still open (Polymarket has publicly said it will challenge the decision, but no timeline is set). If you are looking for licensed event-betting alternatives, in the EU that is ANJ-licensed bookmakers in France, ADM-licensed in Italy and UKGC-licensed in Britain. We laid out the baseline principles for picking a reliable operator separately in the guide to choosing a reliable online casino.
In our view the July 2026 decisions by ANJ and ADM close the debate over the legal status of prediction platforms in Europe: without a local licence, it is illegal gambling, full stop. Online casino gambling and any form of betting is adult entertainment (18+), not a way to earn money; if your gambling budget is slipping out of control, use your national self-exclusion register (Spelpaus in Sweden, OASIS in Germany, RUA in Italy, the ANJ register in France) or contact your national mental-health helpline.