Prediction platform Polymarket has blocked access to French users as a result of an investigation by ANJ, France’s online gaming regulator.
The regulator began looking into the platform, and whether it complied with French gambling laws, in the run up to the U.S. Presidential elections. That’s after one French Polymarket trader, dubbed the “Trump Whale” by media, wagered millions on the former president’s political comeback.
The trader is believed to have won around $85 million betting on Trump, which did not go unnoticed by the ANJ. In all, Polymarket users wagered around $3.2 billion on the outcome of the election.
Polymarket is a decentralized financial exchange and prediction platform that allows users to trade on the outcome of future events using crypto. The site uses event contracts, a type of derivative formatted for putting money on “yes” or “no” outcomes before expiring.
The company does not have a gambling license from the ANJ, nor is it regulated by the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF), the French regulator for derivatives and other financial products.
Unregulated Platform
From Friday, visitors to the platform from inside France, including its most successful trader, the Trump Whale, would have been greeted with the following pop-up message:
“You appear to be located in the United States, France, or another related jurisdiction. Trading is not available to U.S. persons, persons located in the United States, France, or persons located in restricted jurisdictions.”
In 2022, Delaware-registered and New York-based Polymarket was ordered to block access to U.S. residents and to pay a $1.4 million settlement to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for “operating an illegal unregistered or non-designated facility … for event markets.”
However, it’s unclear the extent to which U.S. – and now French – residents are able to access the platform using virtual private networks (VPNs), if at all.
Polymarket’s claim to be able to predict U.S. elections more effectively than traditional polls would seem to be predicated on having a strong sample size of registered U.S. voters.
FBI Raid
A week after the election, the company’s founder and CEO Shayne Coplan’s Manhattan apartment was raided by the FBI. Agents seized Coplan’s phone and electronic devices, according to multiple reports.
In the wake of the raid, a Polymarket spokesperson claimed the incident was an act of “political retribution” for predicting the election results.
This is far-fetched. It’s likely that the FBI is looking into the extent to which US citizens were able to access the platform, although the exact nature of the investigation remains unclear.
Coplan was not arrested, nor has he been accused of any crime.
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