Italy's customs and monopolies regulator has ordered internet providers to make Polymarket and hundreds of other sites unreachable, reasserting that a prediction market operating without an Italian concession is simply an unlicensed gambling operator. It is Polymarket's second Italian blackout in nine months.
Italy's customs and monopolies regulator has ordered internet providers to make Polymarket and hundreds of other sites unreachable, reasserting that a prediction market operating without an Italian concession is simply an unlicensed gambling operator. It is Polymarket's second Italian blackout in nine months.
The Agenzia delle Dogane e dei Monopoli, Italy's Customs and Monopolies Agency (ADM), has ordered the country's internet service providers to block 293 domains, among them the prediction-market platform Polymarket, according to reports on 14 July. The order requires ISPs to render the listed sites unreachable and to redirect anyone attempting to visit them to the ADM's official page. Compliance is reported to be required by 27 July.
The regulator has grounded the move in two existing pieces of Italian law. Article 102 of Law Decree No. 104/2020 provides the power to order domain-blocking, while Article 4 of Law No. 401/1989 sets out the prohibition on organising games without a licence. Taken together, the ADM's reasoning is that a platform allowing Italian users to stake money on outcomes is offering gambling, and that offering gambling in Italy without a local concession is unlawful regardless of how the product is labelled. The regulator's stated position is blunt: without an Italian concession, the door stays shut.
The scale of what Italy is trying to wall off is considerable. Global prediction-market trading volume reached around $24 billion in April 2026, of which Polymarket's international business accounted for roughly $9 billion, according to figures cited in the reporting. The platform has also been building visibility in Italy through sport, with a shirt-sponsorship deal with Serie A club S.S. Lazio reported at around €19 million.
This is not the first time the two sides have clashed. The current order is Polymarket's second Italian blackout. The ADM first blocked the platform on 22 October 2025, before access was briefly restored on 15 December 2025. The renewed and far broader action, sweeping in 293 domains at once, signals that the regulator regards the earlier measures as unfinished business.
Blocking Domains Severs Access Without Touching the Infrastructure
The ADM can compel Italian ISPs to make Polymarket unreachable, but it cannot reach the platform itself, which sits beyond Italian jurisdiction. That distinction is the defining feature of this kind of enforcement: a national regulator controls the local on-ramp, not the road. The history here proves the point, because the platform's first Italian block in October 2025 gave way to restored access by December, and determined users have well-worn tools for circumventing DNS-level blocks. A redirect to an official page will deter the casual visitor and strip away the platform's ability to advertise and sponsor openly, which matters, but it will not dismantle offshore infrastructure that Italian law cannot touch. Severing access is a real sanction; it is not the same as ending the activity.
The €19 Million Lazio Deal Is Why the Regulator Acted Now
What appears to have changed the regulator's calculation is visibility. A prediction market that quietly serves a handful of Italian users is a low priority; one whose branding is reported to sit on the shirts of a Serie A club under a deal worth around €19 million is a public assertion that the product is mainstream and legitimate. By moving against 293 domains at once and naming Polymarket among them, the ADM is drawing a clear line for the wider market: high-profile marketing of an unlicensed gambling product will accelerate enforcement, not insulate it. The Italian market may be a rounding error for a sector whose volumes have since surged past $50 billion in a single month, but the precedent is not. Regulators across Europe will read Italy's reasoning that a concession is non-negotiable, and the crackdown is not confined to Europe: in the United States, the same fight has pulled the CFTC into court against New York.
Channelisation Is the Argument Italy Still Has to Answer
The unresolved question is what Italian users who want to trade these contracts do next. Italy has a mature licensed gambling market, but it does not currently offer a domestic equivalent to the event contracts Polymarket lists, which means the block closes a door without opening an alternative. The channelisation risk is that demand does not disappear; it migrates to whatever offshore venue remains reachable, beyond the reach of Italian consumer protection entirely. That is the same dynamic that shapes every prohibition in this industry, and it is why blocking, on its own, tends to move activity rather than end it. Italy has restated its rule clearly and enforced it broadly. The harder work of giving that demand a licensed home remains undone.
