Posted on: August 27, 2025, 08:49h.
Last up to date on: August 27, 2025, 08:49h.
- Illegal on-line playing is a far richer market than the authorized one
- Unregulated playing web sites generated an estimated $93.5 billion within the EU final yr
Illegal playing operators had a superb yr in 2024, as their offshore on line casino and sports activities betting platforms managed the net gaming market in Europe.
The European Casino Association, a commerce group representing the pursuits of the authorized gaming market within the European Union, commissioned Yield Sec, a market analysis agency targeted on on-line marketplaces, to research how a lot of the net playing sector is managed by unlawful, unlicensed operators. The probe, made public this week, revealed worrying findings.
Yield Sec researchers compiled information utilizing AI and human groups to watch the net site visitors of each authorized and unlawful betting web sites. The methodology included meta-level and nameless surveillance of streaming, betting, and playing exercise inside a jurisdiction, with evaluation primarily based on customers’ “dwell time, activity, and interaction” with such playing web sites and their respective fee wallets and monetary processors.
Yield Sec estimates that unlawful playing accounted for 71% of the net gaming income in 2024, or €80.65 billion ($93.5 billion). Illegal on-line playing grew 53% from 2023 and expanded greater than the authorized market.
Illegal Market Soars
Legal on-line playing with slot machines and desk video games is proscribed within the United States to solely seven states, although on-line sports activities betting is regulated in 34 jurisdictions. In the EU, which incorporates 27 nations, on-line gaming has been part of the tradition for a few years.
However, efforts to scale back situations of playing hurt in recent times are mentioned to have pushed the black market. Things had been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, with the successive lockdowns and brick-and-mortar on line casino closures main many to attempt their hand for the primary time on-line.
Legal on-line gaming operators have been ordered to reduce their promoting and scale back promotions designed to induce play. It’s all possible helped the offshore market.
This worrying analysis underlines the very actual risk posed by the rising, unsafe playing black market. These unlawful operators don’t have any [consumer] protections or requirements … and don’t return a penny to the Treasury,” Grainne Hurst, CEO of the Betting and Gaming Council, instructed City AM.
Though the United Kingdom is not a part of the EU, it’s thought that unlawful on-line playing is flourishing there, too.
Hurst is urging Exchequer Chancellor Rachel Reeves to rethink her proposal to hike the UK’s tax on on-line playing income from 15% to 21%. Hurst believes that may solely push extra gamers to the black market.
More Unregulated Options
The Yield Sec report estimated that the authorized on-line playing market within the European Union to be round $39 billion. That represented a 30% achieve on the prior yr. The determine doesn’t embody on-line lottery income.
Unregulated playing’s greater than 50% year-over-year development wasn’t solely because of authorized operators being put at a aggressive drawback because of rules. The Yield Sec examine mentioned there are extra unregulated playing choices than ever, with the emergence of prediction markets, peer-to-peer wagering exchanges, crypto-based gaming platforms, and social sweepstakes.
Yield Sec estimates that greater than 6,200 energetic unlawful on-line gaming operators are focusing on EU audiences.
