Prediction Markets in Europe: Why a US Supreme Court Win Will Not Reopen the EU

The NFL and the attorneys general of 39 states and the District of Columbia have filed briefs urging the US Supreme Court to hear New Jersey’s petition against Kalshi, and with it the question of whether a prediction market is gambling. For prediction markets in Europe that question has already been answered, by national regulators acting on their own authority, and no ruling in Washington will reverse the answer.

Italy’s gambling authority (ADM) ordered the blackout of Polymarket on 10 July 2026, and the Lazio Regional Administrative Court refused to suspend the order in August. Spain’s gambling regulator blocked both Polymarket and Kalshi in May. France ordered ISPs to block Polymarket in July. In the United Kingdom, the FCA has reportedly opened talks with operators, while the retail ban on binary options remains in force.

The practical conclusion is the one that tends to land worst with US legal teams. A win in Washington does not reopen Europe, and businesses that plan around the cert decision are planning around the wrong event.

1. What the US Supreme Court can and cannot decide

The Court has not yet agreed to hear the case. The Third Circuit upheld an injunction in Kalshi’s favour in April 2026, New Jersey petitioned in September, and Kalshi’s response is due on 9 November. The question, once the Court takes it, is one of US law: whether federal commodities law displaces state gambling law for sports event contracts listed on a CFTC-regulated exchange. Whatever the outcome, its reach ends at the US border.

A ruling in favour of the platforms would bind US courts and US agencies. It would have no effect on:

• the national gambling authorities of the 27 EU member states, each of which applies its own legislation;
• blocking orders already issued and in force, such as the ADM order against Polymarket;
• the position of the UK FCA, which is assessing these products under its own rules and still applies the retail ban on binary options.

A US victory may well change the commercial mood around prediction markets. It changes nothing in the legal analysis that a European regulator will carry out.

2. Where prediction markets in Europe stand today

The European picture is a set of national positions, several of them already formalised in blocking orders. The main ones, as of October 2026, are the following.

• Italy. ADM first blocked Polymarket in October 2025 and lifted the block in December, once the platform stopped real-money trading for Italian users. The new blackout of July 2026 rests on Article 102 of Law Decree 104/2020 and Article 4 of Law 401/1989, and it remains in force after the TAR Lazio rejected the urgent request for suspension.
• Spain. On 26 May 2026 the DGOJ blocked Polymarket and Kalshi as a precautionary measure, treating bets on uncertain future outcomes as games of chance that require a Spanish licence. The block stays in place until the proceedings opened against both companies are closed.
• France. The ANJ flagged Polymarket as unlicensed in November 2024 and, on 16 July 2026, ordered internet providers to block the entire website, after finding that the operator’s geoblocking of French users was routinely circumvented. Polymarket has announced a challenge before the French courts.
• United Kingdom. The FCA treats the financial prediction products it has reviewed as binary options, which have been banned for retail consumers since 2019, and is reportedly in early talks with operators. Contracts on sports or political events fall instead under the Gambling Commission, which regards these platforms as betting exchanges requiring a remote betting intermediary licence.
• Other EU member states. There is no common position. Several regulators had already warned publicly during the World Cup, and each market needs its own analysis.

The last row is the one most often underestimated. Twenty-seven member states means twenty-seven answers to the same question, and those answers do not have to agree.

3. Why a CFTC designation, MiCA or a US ruling cannot lift a blocking order

Gambling is a member state competence and has never been harmonised at EU level. Each national regulator decides for itself whether a contract on an uncertain outcome amounts to a game requiring a licence. In Italy that decision is administrative, it is fast, and for the main platforms it has already been taken.

The instruments that operators tend to rely on answer different questions:

1. CFTC designation. It settles the status of the exchange under US derivatives regulation. It leaves open whether the product is gambling under the law of each member state.
2. MiCA authorisation. It covers the provision of crypto-asset services across the EU. It says nothing about whether a contract on the outcome of an event needs a national gambling licence.
3. A favourable Supreme Court ruling. It would fix the characterisation of the product under US law. It cannot touch the validity of national blocking orders already in force.

A blocking order is a national administrative act. It remains effective until the authority revokes it or a national court annuls it, and neither outcome follows from a judgment delivered in another legal system. The Italian precedent is telling: ADM lifted its first Polymarket block in December 2025 only after the platform changed what it offered to Italian users, and no court ever ruled on the merits.

4. Three mistakes businesses make on prediction markets in Europe

The same errors recur, roughly in this order, in the market entry plans of US event contract platforms.

1. Treating Europe as one jurisdiction. On this question Europe is twenty-seven positions, and a passport obtained for financial or crypto-asset services does not travel into national gambling law. A clearance in one member state says nothing about the next.
2. Assuming a blocking order expires. It does not. Challenging an order runs on a different track from applying for a licence, and in most cases both tracks should run in parallel, since the challenge protects the existing position while the licence application builds the long-term one.
3. Geofencing on IP address and calling it compliance. Italian enforcement has not accepted IP-based blocking as sufficient for years. VPN access, payment flows and user residency are all within the regulator’s field of view, and a control that a determined user bypasses in seconds will not carry much weight in a defence.

5. The forgotten party: licensed operators

The debate is usually framed around the platforms. Licensed gambling operators are the other affected party, and they are largely absent from it.

These operators pay for their concessions (under the new Italian online licensing regime, at a significant cost), pay gaming tax and run player protection tooling under regulatory supervision. They then watch unlicensed event contracts take Italian stakes on sports and other outcomes, without any of those costs. That gap gives them a credible enforcement case, which in Italy can rest on:

• reports to ADM documenting continued access and marketing to Italian users;
• unfair competition claims under Article 2598 of the Italian Civil Code, where the conditions are met;
• engagement with payment providers and other intermediaries that facilitate the unlicensed offer.

Few operators are pursuing this today. The concession holders that do will help shape how the market is policed over the coming months.

6. The next six weeks and what to do now

The European position on prediction markets will be fixed in the next six weeks, well before the Supreme Court decides whether to hear the case. The Italian budget law reaches Parliament within days, and the draft reportedly includes tougher sanctions on illegal online gambling. Once those rules are in force, the cost of remaining in an unlicensed position in Italy goes up.

The priorities depend on which side of the market a business sits on.

1. Platforms offering event contracts should map every European market where users are active, jurisdiction by jurisdiction, and check whether a blocking order or an unlicensed operator listing already exists in each.
2. Where an order is in force, the challenge and the licence assessment should run in parallel, with the commercial offer to that market adjusted in the meantime.
3. IP geofencing should give way to residency verification and payment-level controls that can be defended before a regulator.
4. Licensed operators should document the unlicensed offer reaching Italian users and decide whether to bring it to ADM, before a court, or both.
5. Both groups should follow the budget law through Parliament and model the effect of any new sanctions on their current exposure.

The businesses that act on this before the end of November will be dealing with a known regulatory position. Those that wait for the cert decision will be dealing with one that has already been decided for them.