Polymarket blocked in Italy: what happened, what stays legal

Polymarket is blocked in Italy. The Agenzia delle Dogane e dei Monopoli (ADM), the customs and monopolies agency that licenses gambling, put polymarket.com back on the list of sites Italian access providers must make unreachable on 10 July 2026, with compliance due by 27 July 2026. ADM treats event contracts as betting offered without an Italian licence. Users now land on an ADM page instead of the site.

Last checked: 4 September 2026.

This is not legal advice.

What is the timeline of the Italian block?

Italy blocked Polymarket, unblocked it, then blocked it again. The dates matter because the second block rests on a different factual situation from the first, and because the court case is still open.

Date	What happened	Who
22 October 2025	polymarket.com added to the list of inhibited gambling sites	ADM
4 November 2025	Urgent suspension of the block refused	Lazio regional administrative court
15 December 2025	Domain removed from the list, access restored	ADM
9 July 2026	New order blocking access to www.polymarket.com	ADM
10 July 2026	Domain inserted again in the official list, with 293 new entries in the same update	ADM
27 July 2026	Deadline for internet providers to make the site unreachable	Italian access providers
5 August 2026	Urgent appeal rejected, interim hearing set for 25 August 2026	Lazio regional administrative court
11 August 2026	Shirt sponsorship with S.S. Lazio ended by mutual consent	S.S. Lazio and Polymarket
19 August 2026	Interim suspension request withdrawn, case continues on the merits	Blockratize Inc. and Adventure One QSS Inc.

The list itself is public. In the version published by ADM on 5 August 2026, effective from 20 August 2026, polymarket.com and kalshi.com both appear among 12,637 entries.

Why did ADM block Polymarket?

Because Italian law treats staking money on an uncertain outcome as gambling, and gambling needs an Italian concession. ADM does not need to prove that a platform calls itself a bookmaker. It is enough that the service is equivalent to betting offered to Italian users without a licence.

The blocking power comes from article 102, paragraph 1 of Decree Law 104 of 14 August 2020, converted into Law 126 of 13 October 2020, as ADM states on its own page. That provision lets ADM require access providers to make non-compliant sites unreachable and to redirect visitors to an institutional page. The substantive offence sits in article 4 of Law 401 of 13 December 1989, which sanctions organising or collecting bets without an Italian licence.

Nothing in either instrument turns on blockchain, crypto or tokens. The analysis by DLA Piper's gaming practice makes the same point: the Italian question is whether money is staked on a future event, not how the platform settles.

What is the difference between the 2025 block and the 2026 block?

In 2025 Polymarket responded by switching off the money side for Italy and leaving the informational part of the site reachable, and ADM removed the domain from the list on 15 December 2025. In 2026 ADM listed the domain again and the site is unreachable from an Italian connection.

The 2026 round also has a visible commercial consequence. Polymarket had become the front of shirt sponsor of S.S. Lazio in April 2026. On 11 August 2026 the club announced that the sponsorship had been ended by mutual consent, citing the measures taken by the competent authorities.

Is the block final?

No. It is in force, but the litigation continues. Blockratize Inc. and Adventure One QSS Inc., the companies behind the platform, asked the Lazio regional administrative court to annul the ADM orders of 9 and 10 July 2026 and to suspend them in the meantime. The urgent suspension was refused in early August 2026 and an interim hearing was set for 25 August. On 19 August 2026 the applicants withdrew the interim request, so the block stands while the challenge on the merits proceeds.

Practically, that means the answer to "is Polymarket legal in Italy" is no today, and the date on any page that says otherwise is the thing to check.

What does an Italian user risk?

The orders are addressed to the platform and to access providers, not to individuals. Italian law does, however, contain a provision aimed at players. Article 4, paragraph 3 of Law 401/1989 punishes anyone who takes part in contests, games or bets run in the ways described in paragraph 1, that is without the required licence, with detention of up to three months or a fine of 51 to 516 euros, outside the cases where the person is a co-organiser.

That provision is rarely used against individual online players. It is still the reason we do not publish a workaround. A VPN changes your apparent location and breaks the platform's own terms of use, which can mean a closed account and funds you cannot move. It does not change which law applies to a person sitting in Italy.

What stays legal in Italy: forecasting without money

Italian gambling rules bite when something of value is staked on an uncertain outcome. Article 4 of Law 401/1989 is about games, contests and bets that are organised and collected for money, and ADM's licensing regime exists to authorise exactly that. Take the stake away and there is nothing for either to attach to, which is why forecasting tournaments, research platforms and public prediction records have never appeared on the ADM list.

So from Italy you can still read prices on prediction markets as information, take part in forecasting competitions that award no money, and publish a dated prediction that can be checked when the event resolves. What you cannot do legally is put money on the outcome with an operator that has no Italian concession.

How a call works on insiderz

insiderz lists the same yes or no events as Polymarket and takes no money. You post a call: yes or no, plus how sure you are. The call is locked the second it is posted, with the time and the Polymarket price at that moment frozen into it. It cannot be edited or deleted, not by you and not by us.

When the event resolves, the call is scored against the price the market was showing when you made it. Being right where the market was wrong is what counts. The public ranking of insiders shows four columns: Beats market, Events, Edge and Early. Calls go public after a delay, and followers with live access see them the moment they are made.

There is no money, no prize and no token anywhere in that loop. Identity is a wallet signature, so no email and no name are required. You can browse the open events, the insiders and the calls without an account, and bots can play through the public API under the same rules.

Where to check the current status

Two sources settle the question at any moment. The ADM page Siti soggetti ad inibizione: Giochi publishes the list of blocked domains with the date it was updated and the date it takes effect, in PDF and plain text. Searching that text file for polymarket.com is a one line answer to "is it blocked today".

For the litigation, the Lazio regional administrative court publishes its decisions, and Italian trade outlets such as Jamma report each step with the case details. For the picture across Europe and beyond, see where Polymarket is blocked, country by country, and for the legal test itself see is it gambling if there is no money.