Italy Blocks Polymarket Again — And This Time, Lazio’s €19m Deal Could Be the Real Casualty

Key Points

• The Agency for Customs and Monopolies (ADM) of Italy has blacklisted Polymarket again and identified it as an unauthorised gambling operator.
• The €19 million sponsorship agreement by Lazio with Polymarket, dated April 2026, is likely to violate Italian law, which prohibits the advertisement of unlicensed gambling operators according to the Dignity Decree of 2018.
• The ADM must now submit a report to Rome’s Public Prosecutor, opening the door to potential criminal proceedings against Polymarket.

Polymarket Is Back on Italy’s Blacklist, and Lazio Is Caught in the Crossfire

Italy does not forgive twice. Customs and Monopolies Agency (ADM) blacklisted Polymarket again, thus labelling the US-based prediction marketplace as an illegal gambling provider. This information, reported by the Italian news site Agipro, means that Polymarket is put into the list of illegal gambling providers together with offshore betting operators that have never applied for a license to operate in the country.

That comparison will sting at Polymarket headquarters. The platform has spent considerable effort arguing it runs a financial services product rather than a gambling site, a distinction that carries real legal weight in the United States but has repeatedly failed to land with European regulators. Italy is not in a listening mood.

ADM Fires Again — With a Criminal Referral Pathway Attached

The mechanics of this second blacklisting carry more weight than the first. Under Italian procedure, the ADM is now required to submit a formal report to the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office, outlining grounds for any potential criminal proceedings. That moves well beyond an administrative block.

Betsson’s Southern Europe Managing Director, Stefano Tino, made no effort to hide his satisfaction on LinkedIn: “I was pleased to learn that Polymarket has now been added, again, to the ADM blacklist of unauthorised gambling websites in Italy.” Tino went further, stating: “Licensed operators invest significant resources to obtain and maintain their licences, comply with AML and responsible gambling obligations, implement consumer protection measures, undergo continuous regulatory oversight and contribute substantial tax revenues. It is only fair that they compete on a level playing field.”

Few in the regulated sector would push back on that. Italy’s online gambling market reported casino GGR of €333.7m in December 2025 alone, its first full month under a restructured licensing framework that brought 46 operators into active operation. A market that is tightly governed is not one inclined to make room for platforms that arrive without documentation.

Polymarket Was Here Before — A Court Forced Italy to Back Down

History matters. The ADM first blocked Polymarket in October 2025, citing its classification as an unregulated gambling site. Polymarket challenged that order before the Regional Administrative Court (TAR) of Lazio, and by 15 December 2025, the ADM had been compelled to restore access — specifically to site functions unrelated to prediction trading, such as news and survey data.

The victory was narrow and conditional, not a vindication of Polymarket’s core legal argument. Roberto Cursano, the attorney who led the appeal, framed the outcome with precision: it confirmed “the need for a rigorous, proportionate, and case-by-case application of restrictive measures adopted by administrative authorities.” The ADM has now applied that same logic again, and landed on an identical conclusion.

Lazio’s €19m Sponsorship Gamble Now Looks Like a Liability

The commercial fallout may hurt closer to home than any regulatory fine. Polymarket’s contract to sponsor the shirt of SS Lazio, one of the two teams that compete in Serie A in Rome, was signed in April 2026. It expired at the end of the 2025/26 season and remained valid until the 2027/28 season, with the option extended to the 2028/29 season. The price involved in this deal was US$22m (about €19m).

Under Italian penal law, advertising an unlicensed gambling operator is explicitly prohibited. The 2018 Dignity Decree extends that further, banning gambling sponsorships across television, radio and digital platforms in their entirety. With Polymarket now formally classified as an unauthorised operator by the ADM, Lazio risks breaching both provisions if the partnership continues.

Other clubs navigated the Dignity Decree via indirect arrangements, with Napoli working with bet365 Scores and AS Roma partnering with Eurobet.live — both branded as infotainment products rather than gambling operators. That kind of legal reframing is considerably harder to execute when your partner has just been formally listed as an unlicensed gambling site by the national regulator.

Europe Has Run Out of Patience with Predictions

Polymarket and its US rival Kalshi are fighting on multiple fronts simultaneously, with no sign that the pressure is easing. Spain’s DGOJ launched disciplinary proceedings against both platforms in May 2026, ordering their precautionary blocking while investigations proceed; attempts to notify the companies at their overseas addresses had failed entirely. Nine European gambling regulators have formed a predictions market monitoring coalition ahead of the FIFA World Cup. France, Belgium, Portugal, Singapore and Indonesia have all taken blocking action.

The situation in the US remains comparatively favourable, with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) treating prediction markets as derivatives rather than gambling. Even that position is under strain; a federal judge recently denied Kalshi’s bid to block New York from enforcing its gambling laws against it, and regulators in at least 16 states have been pursuing action against these platforms.

Gibraltar remains the outlier in Europe. The territory has licensed ADI Predictstreet and WagerWire’s predictions offering as betting intermediaries, a route Polymarket and Kalshi have so far declined, precisely because accepting a betting licence would undermine their legal position in the US. Meanwhile, investor Michael Burry has placed his bets on Flutter Entertainment and DraftKings, publicly stating his belief that “prediction markets exist in a loophole adjacent to a heavily regulated and taxed industry” and that they will eventually be folded into traditional regulation and taxation.

Expert Analysis

The second Italian block tells a cleaner story than the first. Regulators are no longer gathering information about what Polymarket is; they have decided what it is, and they are acting accordingly. The TAR appeal bought Polymarket four months of partial resumed access. Now that the ADM has moved again, this time with a criminal referral pathway attached, the platform faces a structurally different obstacle.

The Lazio deal sharpens the risk in a way most prediction market battles do not. A €19m shirt sponsorship on a Serie A club is visible, auditable and easy to pursue through existing advertising law. Whether Italy moves against the partnership will signal how seriously the ADM intends to enforce this second blacklisting. Polymarket is chasing a $15bn valuation against Kalshi’s $22bn; neither platform is close to accepting the licensing frameworks that European regulators are demanding. That gap between ambition and compliance is not sustainable across every market at once, and Italy has just made that point firmly for the second time.