Lazio AS has terminated its record sponsorship with US prediction markets platform Polymarket with immediate effect.

Yesterday, the Serie A club released a statement announcing that the record €22m shirt sponsorship had been terminated by “mutual agreement”, in light of regulatory action against Polymarket taken by Italian authorities.

The partnership had only been announced in April, ending the Biancocelesti’s near-three-year period without a main shirt sponsor. The agreement was scheduled to run until June 2028, with an option to extend for a further season.

However, the sponsorship was thrown into jeopardy by the intervention of the ADM, Italy’s Customs and Monopolies Agency. The ADM reaffirmed that Polymarket’s prediction-market offering falls within Italy’s regulated gambling framework.

On 10 July, ADM reinserted Polymarket onto its blacklist of websites deemed unauthorised to offer gambling services to Italian consumers. The measure treated Polymarket’s activities as the collection or provision of gambling without the necessary Italian concession.

The classification carried direct consequences for Lazio. By treating Polymarket as a gambling operator, its headline sponsorship of the Serie A club became incompatible with the advertising restrictions of Italy’s Dignity Decree of 2018, which prohibits direct and indirect advertising and sponsorship of gambling products.

Polymarket challenged the ADM’s decision before Italy’s Regional Administrative Court (TAR), maintaining that prediction markets should be distinguished from conventional sports betting and gambling products.

However, the TAR declined to grant Polymarket urgent relief while the wider legal challenge was assessed. This left Lazio unable to activate the sponsorship as originally intended ahead of the new Serie A season.

Confirming the termination, Lazio and Polymarket issued a joint statement: “S.S. Lazio announces that it has reached a mutual agreement with Polymarket to terminate the sponsorship agreement entered into between the parties.

“The agreement has been reached in a spirit of mutual cooperation and allows for the early termination of the partnership through a mutually agreed solution that safeguards the interests of both parties, in light of the new measures adopted by the competent authorities affecting the applicable regulatory framework.

“As part of the settlement agreement, Polymarket will pay S.S. Lazio the full amount contractually due for the 2026/2027 sporting season.”

Lazio will avoid an immediate financial hit for the forthcoming campaign, as Polymarket will honour the full amount contractually due for the 2026/27 season, reported to be approximately €9.5m.

Italian football’s betting strife continues

The parties have further left the door open to reviving the partnership should Italy’s regulatory treatment of prediction markets change.

However, there is currently no regulatory reprieve for gambling sponsorships in Italian football 

This week, attention returned to the enforcement of the Dignity Decree as Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti called on AGCOM and the Guardia di Finanza to ensure the full application of Article 9, which prohibits gambling advertising “in any form”.

The intervention comes as Italian football and gambling stakeholders continue to lobby for the Dignity Decree to be repealed or replaced as part of wider reforms of gambling and sports funding.

For the time being, however, the existing law remains in force. Gambling operators, media owners and sports clubs are therefore expected to maintain compliance.

AGCOM stated that rules of the “Dignity Decree stands regardless of Parliamentary proceedings” to repeal and replace the Decree with a specific advertising code for gambling – a matter that is yet to be imposed on the regulatory agenda of the Meloni government for 2027.