In the match Naples-Laziowon 2-0 by the Biancoceleste team, a new main sponsor appeared on the players’ shirts: Polymarket. Football fans, but also those on the internet, who had missed the news opened their eyes wide when they saw his logo on the Lotito team shirt. Yes why Polymarket is not just any brand: it is one of the best-known platforms in the so-called sector prediction marketi.e. predictive markets where users can bet on the outcome of future events. And when we say future events, we’re really talking about any type of future event. An example? The return of Jesus Christ to Earth is also listed on this site.
Let’s go in order, however: the agreement between Lazio and Polymarket will cover the final part of the current season and the seasons 2026-27 And 2027-28with an option for the 2028-29. The overall value of the agreement exceeds 22 million dollarsto which various bonuses are added. Lazio has defined Polymarket not only as the club’s main sponsor, but also as “Official Fan Intelligence & Digital Insight Partner”. According to the president Claudio Lotitoit is “a partner that interprets the future, capable of reading and analyzing phenomena with innovative tools”.
What Polymarket is and how it works for its predictions
Polymarket is one blockchain-based platform which allows users to buy and sell shares linked to a forecast. The mechanism is simple: for each event, options such as “Yes” or “No” are proposed. Users buy shares associated with one of the two outcomes and their price, between 0 and 1 dollar, changes based on the probability attributed by the market. If the prediction comes true, each winning bet pays 1 dollar. However, if the event does not occurthe share loses value. The operation therefore resembles something in between trading platform and a betting site: there is not a traditional counter but a market in which supply and demand determine the price of forecasts. Fanpage.it had already told the story operation of the platform and its risks inin-depth video which we leave you below.
Polymarket, inside the site where you can bet when an atomic bomb will explode: risk analysis
On Polymarket you can bet on sporting eventselections, economic data, technology, entertainment and geopolitical scenarios. In the past the platform has also ended up at the center of attention for very controversial marketslinked for example to wars, international crises or catastrophic events. Polymarket has become globally famous in recent years: starting with the 2024 US presidential elections, when trading volumes grew significantly and the platform somehow transformed into a kind of alternative indicator to traditional surveys. His model, however, remains controversial precisely because monetizes predictions on real factseven very delicate ones.
The blockade of Polymarket in Italy
In Italy Polymarket had been blocked as a betting or event trading platform. The reason was related to public gaming regulations: any activity that allows you to bet money on the outcome of future events requires a concession from the Customs and Monopolies Agency. The Polymarket domain has been added to theautumn of 2025 in the list of sites banned by the Agency. For Italian users, therefore, full use of the platform was not permitted: and although some of its pages were technically accessible, the operational functions could be limited or unavailable. We checked again: in the document updated on April 13th it does not appear in the blocked sites. According to this document now it is possible to use the site also in Italy. According to some betting sites, it appears that the block has been removed last December.
Precisely for this reason the agreement with Lazio has raised doubts: how can a Serie A club have the logo of a platform associated with betting on its shirts? The answer, or if we want the trick, lies in the structure of the agreement. Lazio specified that, for the Italian market, the collaboration with Polymarket concerns exclusively “digital analysis and insights activities”in accordance with current regulations. In other words, the sponsorship would not be linked to the trading or betting activity of the platform, but to its information, technological and data analysis component. According to what was communicated, the partnership has been set up for develop new forms of interaction between sport, data and technologystrengthening the club’s international positioning. Furthermore, the Lotito club wanted to underline that the operation does not present any critical issues from a regulatory point of view.
However, it cannot be said that the case creates an at least questionable precedent since it brings onto the Serie A stage a brand linked to a sector that is still ambiguous from a regulatory point of view: not a traditional bookmaker, but a platform that allows monetize predictions on real events. A model already observed in Italy in other contexts, as in the case of the parallel vote on the referendums on justice, reported by Fanpage.it in this article on the bets opened on Polymarket during the referendum consultation. In short, the case will also hold sway in the next few weeks, which are already very hot for Italian football, dealing with the election of Gravina’s successor at the helm of the FIGC.
