Czech Republic Orders ISPs to Block Polymarket as Europe’s Prediction-Market Wall Hardens

Polymarket has lost access to another European market this week with the Czech Finance Ministry adding the prediction market platform to its List of Unauthorized Internet Games. Internet service providers now have 15 days to block access to the platform. The country’s Institute for Gambling Regulation brought up the listing on July 14. This news makes Polymarket alongside 3,300 other domains the ministry has blacklisted as illegal gambling. 

The same day the block landed, Gibraltar went the other way and switched on the world’s first dedicated prediction-market regime. Same product, same date, opposite verdicts.

Why Prague Calls it Gambling, Not a Contract

Jan Řehola, the founder and director of of the Institute for Gambling Regulation (IPRH) put the country’s stance on prediction platforms in a straightforward manner. Basically if anything functions as a bet, looks like a bet and lets people win or lose money on an uncertain outcome, calling it a contract does not change what it is. 

There’s also another concern tied to how such markets settle. Contracts on prediction markets pay out on real world events and this gives traders the chance to influence the events or trade based on information not available to the public. Regulators call it the prediction-market version of insider trading, and it has trailed Polymarket before, after traders profited on contracts tied to geopolitical and security outcomes.

The Bloc Is Closing Ranks

Czechia joins France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal, among others. The pressure has picked up fast. In June, nine European regulators signed a joint pledge to share information on how prediction platforms target their populations, timed to the World Cup.

Italy went further this month. Its Customs and Monopolies Agency re-added Polymarket to its blocklist after a court had briefly reopened access, and this time the agency must report the matter to the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office, which opens the door to criminal proceedings. The Dutch regulator rejected Polymarket’s appeal and upheld its sanction days earlier. What began as scattered national bans now looks coordinated. 

Gibraltar Runs the Opposite Play

While Prague was blacklisting the product, Gibraltar was licensing it. The territory’s Prediction Market Regulations 2026 took effect July 13, carving prediction markets out of its Gambling Act 2025 and handing them a purpose-built rulebook, the first of its kind anywhere. Operators need approval for each event contract, and stablecoins are allowed for deposits and settlement.

Two platforms fall under the regime. ADI Predictstreet, the official prediction-market partner of the 2026 FIFA World Cup and built on Abu Dhabi’s ADI Chain, was licensed as a betting intermediary in March. WagerWire’s Wire Markets got approval in principle in June and is aiming for an August launch. 

Europe now runs two tracks on the exact same instrument. One blocks it as gambling. The other builds it a home. 

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