France and Czech ISPs block prediction markets

TLDR

France and the Czech Republic have ordered domestic internet providers to block access to Polymarket, a major crypto prediction market, treating it as unauthorized gambling rather than financial trading.

1. Frances gambling regulator ANJ ordered ISP-level blocks on Polymarket after earlier geoblocking failed and cited illegal gambling, hacked weather sensors, and missing identity checks as key risks.
2. Czech authorities added Polymarket to a list of unauthorized internet games, aligning with wider European efforts and ESMA guidance that event contracts may fall under banned binary options rules.
3. For crypto users, this means tighter EU access, more aggressive geofencing and KYC, and rising odds that other prediction markets face similar restrictions or need to rework products and licensing.

Deep Dive

1. What France And Czech Actually Did

Frances Autorit Nationale des Jeux (ANJ) ordered all French ISPs to block Polymarket on 16 July 2026, after users bypassed earlier geoblocking and continued accessing live odds and markets, which ANJ classed as illegal gambling and unauthorized promotion, with potential fines up to 100,000 for violators. Reports note around 578,000 visits and over 200,000 unique French users in June 2026, prompting ANJ to escalate from financial and access restrictions to full front-end blocking of the sites domain and IPs. The Czech Ministry of Finance similarly put Polymarket on its List of Unauthorized Internet Games and gave local ISPs a short deadline to block the domain, treating its event contracts as unlicensed gambling services rather than regulated financial products.

2. Regulatory Framing In Europe

Frances decision builds on a broader pattern where regulators frame crypto prediction markets as gambling platforms, not trading venues, citing addictive mechanics, lack of stake limits or self-exclusion, and weak identity checks, as highlighted in ANJs statements and coverage by outlets like CoinDesk. At the EU level, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has warned that certain event contracts with binary pay outs may qualify as financial instruments under MiFID II, allowing national authorities to apply existing bans on binary options to retail users and use ISP-level blocking to enforce them. CoinMarketCaps community analysis notes France and Czechia as part of a group of more than 30 jurisdictions that have already restricted Polymarket, including Singapore, Brazil, several EU states, and others, even as global prediction market volume continues to grow strongly.

3. Implications For Crypto Users And Platforms

For users in France and Czechia, the immediate impact is loss of direct web access to Polymarket through normal ISP routing, with only technical workarounds like VPNs or alternative DNS potentially restoring reach, which can themselves carry legal or contractual risk. For platforms, these moves signal that regulators are willing to attack the user interface layer, even when smart contracts remain live, and push operators toward stricter geofencing, stronger KYC and IP checks, or product redesign to avoid gambling and binary option classifications. Other crypto prediction markets, and even centralized exchanges that experiment with event contracts, now face higher regulatory tail risk in the EU, especially if ESMAs guidance encourages more member states to treat such products as either banned gambling or restricted derivatives.

Conclusion

France and Czechia are moving from soft geoblocking to hard ISP-level blocks on Polymarket, using gambling laws and binary option frameworks to curb access rather than waiting for new crypto-specific rules. That raises the bar for crypto prediction markets operating in Europe, pushing them toward heavier compliance or structural changes and increasing fragmentation between jurisdictions where event contracts are treated as financial innovation and those that classify them as gambling to be blocked at the network edge.