Italy Re-Bans Polymarket — Putting a $22m Lazio FC Sponsorship Deal Under Italian Criminal Law
Italy's Customs and Monopolies Agency (ADM) added Polymarket to its blacklist for the second time in July 2026, re-classifying it as an unlicensed gambling operator. Polymarket had won a court reversal in late 2025 before the TAR Lazio. The renewed block threatens Polymarket's $22 million Lazio FC sponsorship: Italian law prohibits clubs from advertising unlicensed betting, potentially forcing Lazio to drop the partnership.
Italy's Customs and Monopolies Agency (ADM) added Polymarket to its official list of blocked websites for the second time in July 2026, re-classifying it as an unlicensed gambling operator. Polymarket was first blocked in late 2025, but secured a reversal before the TAR Lazio — the Regional Administrative Court of Lazio — allowing the site to resume Italian access in December 2025. The ADM has now re-listed the domain, effectively restarting the blocking dispute despite the earlier court outcome.
The renewed ban has immediate implications beyond platform access. Polymarket holds a $22 million sponsorship deal with S.S. Lazio, the Serie A club based in Rome — prominent branding at the Stadio Olimpico and across Lazio's matchday and digital assets. Under Italian law, a club cannot lawfully advertise an entity classified as an unlicensed betting operation; the prohibition is enforced under the penal code. If the re-listing stands, Lazio faces legal exposure for continuing to display Polymarket branding and may be compelled to terminate or renegotiate the deal.
For UK readers the episode is instructive. Polymarket maintains that its products are financial instruments rather than gambling — the same argument it uses in US litigation, where the CFTC provides a preemption doctrine. In Italy, the ADM has no equivalent of the CFTC. The classification decision belongs to the gambling regulator, which has now made it twice. The Gambling Commission in the UK operates in a similarly definitive way: without an FCA-equivalent licence for event contracts, a UK block would proceed on the same ADM logic. The TAR Lazio's 2025 reversal did not settle the classification question; it temporarily suspended the block.
The Italian ban lands on the same day Gibraltar announced the world's first dedicated prediction markets regulatory framework — deliberately distinguishing prediction markets from gambling. The contrast could not be sharper: one European jurisdiction is building licensing infrastructure for prediction markets as a distinct product, while another re-blocks the sector's most prominent international platform for the second time in six months. For the industry, the Italian episode previews what happens when prediction markets operate under a 'not gambling' legal theory in a jurisdiction whose regulator has already decided they are.
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