Insider trading on Polymarket: what Ballon d’Or bettors risk
On 26 October 2026, the Ballon d’Or ranking matched bets placed by Polymarket accounts opened a few days earlier, and France Football reported the matter to the police. A bet on an award falls outside EU market abuse law: it is not a financial instrument traded on an EU trading venue, so insider trading rules do not apply. The bettor and the source of the leak remain exposed to general French criminal law, and the winnings fall within anti-money laundering rules.
What happened at the 2026 Ballon d’Or?
On 26 October 2026, at the London Palladium, France Football announced a very tight ranking. In the days before, several Polymarket accounts had correctly bet on the order of the top five. The media outlet Upside, whose findings the press reported on 31 October, identified twelve accounts created between 1 and 20 October, seven of which had never traded on any other market. An X user traced six suspicious wallets, opened between 1 and 25 October and funded from several exchanges, while stating that he was accusing no one.
A regulated service provider moved the investigation forward: a French platform, asked for its data, reportedly identified the person who funded one of the wallets. France Football opened an internal investigation and passed this information to the police. If the leak is confirmed, the question remains what French law allows prosecutors to pursue.
Does insider trading law apply to a bet on Polymarket?
Insider trading law (insider dealing, in the words of EU law) protects financial markets. It punishes the use of inside information to buy or sell a financial instrument, that is, precise, non-public information which, if made public, would be likely to have a significant effect on the price (Articles 7 and 8 of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 on market abuse, MAR). The textbook case is a director who buys shares in his company before a takeover bid is announced. MAR, however, only covers financial instruments traded on an EU regulated market, multilateral trading facility (MTF) or organised trading facility (OTF), and instruments whose price depends on them (Article 2 MAR). The French criminal offence of insider dealing (délit d’initié) applies the same scope and extends it to crypto-assets traded on a trading platform (Articles L. 465-1 and L. 465-3-4 of the French Monetary and Financial Code, CMF).
A market on the Ballon d’Or fails this first test. In our study published in the Revue de droit bancaire et financier, a French banking and finance law journal, we sought to show that classification must be carried out market by market, and that a sports market, such as the award of a prize, falls solely under gambling law. A ranking decided by a jury vote is neither a commodity, nor an official statistic, nor a measure within the meaning of financial legislation.
The same holds for a market classified as a financial contract, for instance on an inflation figure: as long as the contract is not traded on any EU trading venue, MAR does not apply. Polymarket operates outside the EU, and on 16 July 2026 the ANJ (Autorité nationale des jeux, the French gambling regulator) ordered its website to be blocked, a decision the platform is challenging in court.
| Market classified as a bet | Market classified as a financial contract | |
|---|---|---|
| Examples | Ballon d’Or, World Cup final | Inflation published by INSEE (the French statistics office), commodity price |
| Unlicensed operator | Operating unauthorised gambling | Providing investment services in binary options without authorisation |
| Bettor with advance knowledge | Handling the proceeds of an offence, money laundering | Insider trading if the contract is traded on an EU trading venue; otherwise, general criminal law |
| Competent authority | ANJ | AMF (the French financial markets regulator) |
What does the person who leaked the ranking risk?
The person who passes on the result before it is announced may be a juror, an employee of the organiser or a contractor. That person first faces criminal breach of trust (abus de confiance): misappropriating, to the detriment of others, property handed over on condition that it be used in a specific way (Article 314-1 of the French Criminal Code). The Criminal Chamber of the Cour de cassation, France’s supreme court in civil and criminal matters, accepts that information can be such property (Cass. crim., 16 November 2011, No 10-87.866, on customer information). In our view, a ranking entrusted in confidence, solely for its announcement, fits this pattern, and the offence carries five years’ imprisonment and a €375,000 fine.
Breach of professional secrecy is a narrower route. It requires information that the law treats as secret and a person entrusted with it by profession (legal professionals, doctors, civil servants, ministers of religion and others); the Criminal Chamber quashes convictions that do not establish both conditions (Cass. crim., 6 March 2012, No 11-80.801). A mere contractual confidentiality undertaking does not make a private juror the holder of a secret within the meaning of this provision.
The organiser may also dismiss for misconduct an employee who leaked the result, terminate the contractor’s agreement and claim damages. If the source also placed bets, these risks add to those of the bettor.
What does the bettor who knew the result risk?
The offence of operating unauthorised gambling targets the operator first (Article L. 324-1 CSI). For the informed bettor, the main risk lies in where the information came from. On 18 February 2026, the Criminal Chamber held that knowingly benefiting from information that is the proceeds of an offence amounts to handling the proceeds of an offence (recel). It upheld the conviction of a former manager who had obtained a competitor’s prices and technical tender documents from one of its employees, although he argued that he had received this information only orally (Cass. crim., 18 February 2026, No 24-82.611). The court thus departs from the former rule that information could not be the object of recel (Cass. crim., 19 June 2001, No 99-85.188).
Applied to the Ballon d’Or, this ruling may lead to a charge of handling the proceeds of a breach of trust against a bettor who knew the ranking had leaked (Article 321-1 of the French Criminal Code). Proving that knowledge is the hard part of the investigation: the timing of account openings, the absence of other activity and exchanges with the source provide the evidence.
The winnings follow the same fate: assisting in the investment, concealment or conversion of the proceeds of an offence is money laundering (Article 324-1 of the French Criminal Code).
What should a CASP receiving these winnings do?
To be spent, Polymarket winnings generally flow back to a crypto-asset service provider (CASP) or a bank that converts them. That provider must report to Tracfin, the French financial intelligence unit, any sums it knows, suspects or has good reason to suspect derive from an offence punishable by more than one year’s imprisonment (Article L. 561-15 CMF). It does not need to identify the offence; suspicion is enough. The Ballon d’Or case shows that this link in the chain works, since a French platform reportedly helped identify one of the funders.
CASPs should detect flows from prediction markets and apply suitable risk scoring to them. We recommend adding four signals specific to these markets to monitoring scenarios:
- deposits or withdrawals linked to a prediction platform that is not authorised in France;
- a wallet opened or reactivated a few days before an event whose result is known to a small circle;
- a large gain followed by a quick withdrawal, a conversion or the use of a cross-chain bridge;
- a mismatch between the client’s profile and the size or accuracy of their bets.
Regulation (EU) 2023/1113 on information accompanying transfers of funds and certain crypto-assets (the travel rule) also requires checks on transfers received from self-hosted addresses. A client who cites Polymarket winnings as the source of funds must substantiate it; without a consistent explanation, the provider may refuse the transaction and must consider whether to file a suspicious transaction report.
To adapt your monitoring scenarios and reporting procedure: AML/CFT compliance for CASP in France.
Why will leak prevention decide the future of prediction markets?
No authorisation route is open in France for a general-purpose prediction market, as we explained when discussing the regulatory consequences for operators. If a framework opens in Europe, through gambling law or financial instruments law, it will first require the prevention of leaks and abuse. Financial law already requires trading venues to detect and report suspicious orders (Article 16 MAR). Gambling law restricts betting to sports competitions and events on a list kept by the ANJ, which may prohibit certain types of bets at the organiser’s request (Article 12 of Act No 2010-476 of 12 May 2010 on online gambling).
Prevention alone will not be enough. An operator will have to identify its users, monitor unusual positions, freeze a market exposed to a leak and cooperate with the authorities. It will also have to give up markets whose result is known to a small circle before it is announced: a jury vote is not a sports competition, and in our view a bet on the Ballon d’Or would remain outside any authorisation, however good the monitoring.
Confidential information exploited on a prediction market?
We act for event organisers and companies whose confidential information has been exploited on a prediction market: recording the transactions on the blockchain, filing a criminal complaint as a civil party, seeking court orders for disclosure and seizure from service providers, then reviewing the confidentiality undertakings of jurors, employees and contractors. Our regulatory and litigation teams handle these matters together, acting for regulated firms and victims alike. We also advise CASPs on updating their anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT) framework for these flows.
You can also talk to a partner.
Frequently asked questions on insider trading and Polymarket
The firm also advises Web3 game publishers (Games with monetisable digital objects (JONUM)) and providers seeking authorisation (Obtaining CASP authorisation from the AMF).
