SS Lazio has secured a new commercial partner after being forced to abandon its high-profile arrangement with prediction markets platform Polymarket earlier this season.
The Serie A club has penned a two-season agreement with Kaiyun Sports, an Asia-focused betting and gaming company, to replace the partnership that fell apart under regulatory scrutiny.
The new deal sees the kaiyunsports.news logo placed on the sleeve of SS Lazio’s men’s first team jersey during official Serie A matches for the 2026/27 and 2027/28 seasons.
Polymarket’s sponsorship arrangement with Lazio was declared illegal gambling by the ADM, Italy’s Customs and Monopolies Agency, forcing both parties to mutually cancel the three-year, €22m deal.
Despite the early termination, Polymarket still paid Lazio the full sum allocated for the 2026/27 campaign under their original agreement, with the club picking up an estimated €9.5 million in remuneration.
Lazio has yet to secure a new main shirt sponsor, making the Kaiyun sleeve deal a partial solution to the commercial gap left by Polymarket’s swift exit from Italian football.
SS Lazio’s official announcement stated: “S.S. Lazio is pleased to announce a new partnership with kaiyunsports.news, which will become the Club’s Official Sleeve Sponsor for the 2026/27 and 2027/28 Serie A seasons.”
The club described kaiyunsports.news as “a global sports news platform delivering football news, match coverage and sports content to fans around the world,” framing the deal as a media rather than betting partnership.
This distinction is significant given Italy’s 2018 Dignity Decree, which banned direct sponsorships between betting companies and football clubs, pushing firms to operate through infotainment and media-branded subsidiaries instead.
Betsson’s StarCasino Sport and bet365’s bet365 Scores have both navigated this same regulatory landscape to secure partnerships with Serie A clubs using comparable infotainment structures.
Kaiyun Sports has previous experience working with European football clubs, having held partnerships with Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forest in English football, though those deals were controversial given the firm lacked a UK licence after 2023.
The broader debate around Italy’s Dignity Decree has intensified recently, particularly following Italy’s failure to qualify for the 2026 World Cup, with the commercial gap created by the betting ban frequently cited as a contributing structural issue.
Whether Lazio’s new arrangement with Kaiyun Sports proves more durable than its short-lived Polymarket deal remains to be seen, especially given the firm’s chequered history in European markets.
