Key Points
- ADM’s Order No. 00540333 dated 5 August 2026, orders all ISPs in Italy to block 190 unlicensed gambling websites by 20 August, in accordance with Article 102 of Decree-Law 104 of 2020.
- These include Fonbet’s domains such as fonbet.com and fonbet-italy.com, following the failure of the recent ambassadorial deal between the Russian bookmaker and Italian football star Andrea Pirlo that dashed the latter’s hopes of becoming the national team coach.
- The size of the unlicensed gambling industry in Italy is estimated at €20 billion per year, and more than 4.5 million Italians use illegal betting sites during Q1 2026.
What the ADM Order Actually Says?
Italy’s Customs and Monopolies Agency (ADM) announced its Order No. 00540333 on 5 August 2026, which instructs all internet service providers in the country to block 190 gambling websites by 20 August 2026. It is based on Article 102 of Decree-Law 104, 2020, subsequently converted to Law 126 of that year. The notice supersedes the earlier ADM notice published on 10 July 2026.
Every time Italian users try to access any of the specified sites, they get redirected to a notice on the ADM website stating that the site does not have permission to conduct gambling services in Italy. Posting of the notice on the ADM’s official website constitutes official notice to connectivity providers as well.
What makes the order significant beyond its size is what it says about player exposure. Italians who use unlicensed sites have no access to the consumer protections built into the regulated market: payment safeguards, data handling standards, and responsible gambling tools. That protection gap, not just the licensing violation, is the stated driver behind the ADM’s sustained enforcement programme.
Fonbet’s Domains, and Why Everyone Is Paying Attention
Among the newly blocked addresses are several domains tied to the Russian bookmaker Fonbet, including fonbet.com and fonbet-italy.com. The inclusion is legally unremarkable — Fonbet holds no ADM authorisation to operate in Italy, the same reason every other address on the list was added. What is not unremarkable is the timing.
However, Fonbet was not an alien name to Italian sports as it had been talked about extensively within a few weeks before that, owing to its sponsorship deal with Andrea Pirlo that made him unfit to be the coach of the Italian national football team. Pirlo, who coaches United FC in the UAE Pro League, had signed a sponsorship deal with the Russian betting firm back in October 2025. More questions were raised when Pirlo joined forces with Marco Materazzi, his former Italian teammate, at the Football Day event held in Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium on 24 May 2026, which was organised by Fonbet.
Pirlo commented on his involvement via Instagram and said that the “professional collaboration” was “strictly commercial and sporting in character,” while giving any political significance to his collaboration would be tantamount to “attributing ideas to me that I’ve never aired.” This comment did not stop the controversy. Certain members of the Italian parliament, as well as certain members of FIGC, raised objections to Pirlo’s candidacy, which then led to his withdrawal from the race.
The fallout reached further than Pirlo. Paolo Maldini resigned as FIGC Technical Director on 27 July, sixteen days after being confirmed in the role on 11 July. Maldini had backed Pirlo strongly, and his departure exposed how deeply the episode had divided the federation. Pirlo himself had been considered first choice to replace Gennaro Gattuso, after Pep Guardiola turned down the position and Italy had now missed qualification for three consecutive World Cups.
The ADM’s decision to add Fonbet’s domains is separate in law from any of this. The regulator acts on licensing status, not public controversy. Still, a bookmaker that spent recent weeks generating political headlines over its Italian-facing ambassador is now formally blocked from reaching Italian users.
The Scale of What 190 Domains Cannot Fix
A blocking order covering 190 sites reads as firm action. Set against the actual shape of Italy’s unlicensed gambling market, the number looks different.
The Data Room Nexus Observatory report released in May 2026 indicates that the size of the Italian market for illegal online betting stands at €20 billion per year. As many as 4.5 million Italians accessed the sites that lacked official licenses during the first quarter of 2026, creating 13 million sessions. Researchers discovered four to five new domains per day during this period. The estimate is that no less than 5,000 domains operate illegally in Italy each year, which the Observatory has registered in 10 per cent of such cases.
The ADM has blocked over 12,000 unauthorised domains since 2019. The enforcement record is consistent. What it has not done is reduce the supply of unlicensed operators, which regenerate through mirror sites with near-identical interfaces, allowing users to continue playing without noticing a change. ADM’s own Luca Turchi has said publicly that coordinated cross-border enforcement, rather than national action alone, is likely needed to make meaningful inroads.
How Is Italy Trying to Change the Structure?
The blocking programme sits within a wider regulatory overhaul that Italy has been building for several years. From November 2025, the ADM reduced the number of licensed online gambling sites from 407 to 52, capping each licence holder to a single website and ending the practice of reselling licensed products through third-party “skin” sites. Each licence now costs €7 million, with a nine-year term.
The ADM, working alongside the Ministry of Economy and Finance and state-owned tech hub SOGEI, is also developing a cybersecurity shield designed to block connections to unlicensed gambling domains on devices that provide public internet access, covering cafés, libraries, and similar venues. Businesses that fail to install the required software face fines; operators caught directing users to illegal sites through closed-browsing devices risk criminal referral.
The combined logic is clear enough: tighten the licensed market, reduce the number of doors unlicensed operators can walk through, and harden the technical environment at the network level. Whether it closes the gap on a €20 billion shadow market is a different question entirely.
Expert Analysis
The Fonbet episode has drawn public attention to an enforcement update that would otherwise have passed without comment. Regulators add domains to blacklists routinely; 190 in a single order is larger than average but not extraordinary for Italy. What it illustrates, more usefully, is the compliance risk that comes with operating or endorsing a bookmaker that lacks local licensing, even when the legal issue lies entirely with the operator. Pirlo’s ambassadorial contract was valid. His appearances for Fonbet broke no laws he was subject to. What ended his coaching candidacy was not illegality on his part, but the fact that the company paying him had no right to operate in the country where it mattered most. For athletes, clubs, and their legal teams, that is the sharper lesson from both the ADM order and the weeks of controversy that preceded it.
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