France has blocked access to the Polymarket betting website, the country’s gambling regulator said on Friday, citing concerns it could expose users to significant gambling losses and that some wagers offered on the platform could be manipulated.
Soooo. Why did they wait until after the World Cup?
According to the article it was timed before the final.
This is the sane response to that fucking racket.
it’s pretty wild that our ‘answer’ to economic issues is… to promote gambling and financial speculation as ‘growth’.
it is basically the financial equivalent of pushing cigarettes as a solution to healthcare issues.
and idiots drink it up, thinking cigarettes will make them cool, and gambling will make them rich.
god forbid western countries to the hard work of… actually investing and building their economies… no sir!
Isn’t the whole point of that website to have manipulatable outcomes so the potential whistleblower is financially motivated to expose his knowledge by placing a bet?
Isn’t the whole point of that website to have manipulatable outcomes
yes
so the potential whistleblower is financially motivated to expose his knowledge by placing a bet?
No, its so that insiders can make a bunch of money by scamming idiots while the website owners take a cut
No the point of the website is to use insider knowledge to scam rubes, while the website takes its cut.
Potayto Patahto.
Why is it different than betting on something at a regular bookmaker’s where someone could, hypothetically, be betting with insider knowledge?
Generally, legal gambling has lots of protections and controls in place to at least theoretically limit manipulation of the odds.
It’s also probably very bad for humans to gamble on things like wildfires or war crimes.
Do you mean “legal betting”? AFAIK poly market is legal most places.
I believe in my country there is no specific regulation of inside information used in sports versus other betting.
For example, using insider knowledge to manipulate stock markets will lead to the government taking away your earnings and sending you to prison.
An athlete using their position on the team to change the outcome of a game in order to win bets is generally met with ejection from the team and league, and there may be financial and legal penalties as well.
Casinos generally have detailed regulations to ensure that their games are fair representations of what is presented.
I’m not sure what country you’re in, but you should probably take a closer look at the legal codes around sports betting.
Polymarket itself faces different levels of prohibition in many countries around the world.
I looked them up before writing my comment. They cover both legal and non-legal frameworks (i.e. being fired, not just being prosecuted) and all areas. They focus most on sports but use examples from other areas of life.
It came out that the guy that ran Trump’s teleprompter made bank on one of these apps. So yeah, it’s just insider trading with a different name.
https://www.npr.org/2026/07/16/nx-s1-5896223/kalshi-trump-white-house-teleprompter-operator-bet
Guess he didn’t pay the big man and now he’s getting investigated.
