Prediction markets in Europe belong to Polymarket and a summer of spikes

Blask data shows Polymarket holding 90.8% of prediction market attention in Europe, with the next four brands together staying under 9%. That concentration sits on a demand year that ran from an eleven-fold rise in France to a wipeout of last year’s Romanian spike, then an August collapse that spared Britain. This article covers prediction markets’ dynamics in Europe and tells about the biggest spikes in European countries.

Blask data covers prediction markets across 28 European countries as for August 2026.

Top five prediction market brands in Europe

The European shelf has a single occupant. BAP leaves Polymarket with the segment and Kalshi as the only runner-up with a measurable share. Manifold, Myriad and ADI PredictStreet split the rest in fractions of a percent, and they do so in every market in the set.

Polymarket already leads European search demand in this category. The brand order stayed the same through the year — interest in prediction markets themselves is what moved. 

YoY Blask Index for prediction markets in Europe

Over the 12 months to August 2026, prediction market demand grew fastest in France — 11x — and Ukraine — about 9x. Switzerland, Poland, the Netherlands and Germany each more than tripled. Britain is still the largest market in Europe but grew only 22.5%.

Those YoY figures include earlier monthly spikes. In August most of the same countries fell hard: Spain −95.2%, France −86.6%, the Netherlands −81.8%, Ukraine −76.9%. Switzerland rose 19.7%. Britain rose 77.7%.

The summer had a clear regulatory backdrop. On 3 July, ESMA* said event contracts that qualify as MiFID II instruments fall under the existing national bans on retail binary options, in force since 2019. On 17 June, nine gambling regulators (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland) warned sports bodies about prediction market platforms during the World Cup. 

The YoY leaders are also the countries with the biggest monthly spikes. Those months explain the annual ranking.

*ESMA — European Securities and Markets Authority.

The EU’s financial-markets regulator and supervisor. It oversees investment firms, trading venues, and rules such as MiFID II. It is not a gambling regulator.

Brightest MoM spikes behind the annual numbers

Romania had the first big move: demand jumped more than 160 times in May 2025. That one month now sits in the year-ago base, so Romania is the only large European market down on a YoY basis (−96.9%).

France jumped 6х in January 2026 and more than 12х in May, then fell in June, before the ESMA statement and before ANJ ordered French ISPs to block Polymarket on 16 July. In August, French demand fell another 86.6%.

Ukraine jumped about 15х in April, which is why it still ranks second on YoY after a 76.9% drop in August. The Netherlands peaked in July, in the last weeks of the World Cup, then fell 81.8% in August. Germany more than doubled in January, stayed high through July, and halved in August.

Britain is the exception in August. It rose 77.7% while most EU markets fell. Explanation is clear: the UK is outside the EU binary-options rules ESMA restated in July.

Bottom line

Prediction markets in Europe have a monopolist and a calendar. Polymarket still takes the attention. The YoY scores from France and Ukraine are real, and the monthly series is already giving them back. Switzerland’s climb and Britain’s August rebound are the two prints still moving the other way, while the July regulatory cluster can still compress the EU side of the book.