Polymarket faces pressure in France over political prediction markets

Polymarket, a platform that became popular for offering prediction markets on the US elections and seeing a disproportionate volume of predictions going in favor of Donald Trump, before November 5’s election, is under scrutiny in France.

According to The Big Whale, a French media outlet, the country’s gambling watchdog, the National Gaming Authority, is considering whether it should block Polymarket and its prediction markets, citing concerns about the huge volume of money placed on the US presidential election.

Polymarket faces scrutiny as regulator questions legality of markets

Polymarket has reportedly moved $3.5bn in total volume on the US election. The French Gaming Authority began to look into the platform after knowledge surfaced that an anonymous and potentially French-based citizen had placed millions worth of wagers backing Trump for the presidency.

The person has done so through multiple different accounts, originally trying to obfuscate his country of origin, but social media snoops soon discovered that the person or people involved with the accounts were most likely French. They are said to have earned a $47m payout for Trump’s electoral victory.

Polymarket did investigate the trader identified as Théo by Reuters and found no foul play. According to the platform, there was nothing speculative or underhand going on. The platform said that upon contacting and investigating the matter further, the trader known as Théo was simply expressing their "personal political views," and was not trying to sway public opinion.

In the meantime, the French Gaming Authority has been looking to implement measures that protect consumers from accessing unregulated markets. Polymarket, much like many other blockchain-based companies offering future markets, has insisted that its products are not "betting" but a "prediction" or "future" market, and that the money placed on such contracts were not in fact gambling.

Political prediction markets went unopposed in the 2024 election cycle

This argument has been upheld in the United States, where Kalshi, a similar platform to Polymarket, has been able to launch and operate legally. Robinhood, another trading and fintech company, also launched the same prediction markets in the wake of Kalshi’s legal win against the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Understandably, both Kalshi and Polymarket have been criticized heavily by critics of this type of prediction market, who have repeatedly argued that allowing such platforms to exist undermines the fairness of the election.

However, no critic can write off what Kalshi and Polymarket have been able to achieve – they have successfully predicted political events well ahead of official polls, and far more accurately. Whether the French Gaming Authority will move ahead and decide to block the platform remains to be seen.

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