Posted by 
The French National Gaming Authority is investigating crypto betting platform Polymarket, the regulator told POLITICO on Thursday.
“We are familiar with this site and are currently examining its operation and compliance with France’s legislation on gambling,” the National Gaming Authority said.
Polymarket is a platform that allows users to bet with cryptocurrency on the outcome of various high-profile events and it surged in popularity during the U.S. presidential election. In May, tech billionaire Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund led a $45 million round of investment into Polymarket.
The platform claims that “prediction markets are often more accurate than pundits because they combine news, polls, and expert opinions into a single value that represents the market’s view of an event’s odds.”
Polymarket is not authorized to operate in France and had been under French regulators’ “radars” since before the U.S. election, said an official familiar with the probe, who was granted anonymity to discuss the ongoing proceedings.
The Big Whale, a cryptocurrency news publication, reported Wednesday that the authority was getting ready to ban Polymarket in France. Polymarket declined to respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.
While most presidential forecasts had the race between Trump and Kamala Harris as a toss-up, bets on Polymarket showed Trump favored to win, which the now-president elect boasted about on his Truth Social account two weeks before the election. However, in the weeks leading up to the vote, Polymarket consistently showed Harris winning the popular vote, which is now on track to go to Trump as well.
The platform drew attention in France last month after The New York Times reported that one French user had bet $28 million on a Trump win using four different accounts — and thus shortening Trump’s odds of winning on the platform.
Polymarket said in a statement last month that it had investigated the trading activity and not found any information that the user behind it “manipulated, or attempted to manipulate, the market.”
The Wall Street Journal, which said it is in touch with the bettor, reported his winnings amounted to nearly $50 million.
Gambling platforms are heavily regulated in France and require authorization from the regulator to operate. Polymarket is based in New York but purports not to offer its services to users in the United States. In 2022, Polymarket settled charges from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission alleging it was illegally operating in the U.S.
The watchdog is now looking to ban all election betting in the U.S. derivatives markets.
Declan Harty contributed to this report.
