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France’s gambling regulator said it is investigating Polymarket to determine compliance with domestic law.
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This comes after it emerged that a ‘whale’ who had bet $30 million on a Trump victory had French nationality.
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France closely regulates online gambling and requires markets to obtain prior approval.
Election betting has soared during the 2024 presidential campaign, and the increasing popularity of gambling on politics has caught the attention of at least one government watchdog.
Polymarket, the crypto-based gambling site where four accounts linked to one trader bet $30 million on a Donald Trump victory, is under investigation by the French gambling regulator after the US elections.
The Autorité Nationale des Jeux said it is investigating Polymarket to determine whether it complies with national laws.
“We are aware of this site and are currently investigating its operation and compliance with French gambling laws,” a spokesperson for the regulator told Bloomberg. A report from crypto news site The Big Whale states that the ANJ is preparing to ban the site for French users.
The increased scrutiny of Polymarket comes after a trader revealed he was a French citizen who had bet $30 million on a Trump victory on the platform. The “whale” saw approximately $48 million in winnings on the bets.
While there was speculation that the bets were an influence campaign aimed at supporting Trump, the trader told The Wall Street Journal that the bets were simply a belief about the election outcome and that he has no political agenda.
France strictly regulates online gambling and requires that new gambling markets obtain prior approval from the ANJ.
Polymarket, based in New York, is not available to US users, although some gamblers have used VPNs to bypass the restrictions.
Polymarket collected nearly $3.7 billion in bets on the election before the results were announced, Polymarket data shows. The site showed long odds in favor of a Trump victory, even though he and Kamala Harris were nearly tied in the polls in the weeks leading up to the vote.
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