EU Illegal Gambling Market Hits €91.6bn, States Lose €22.9bn in Tax

⏱ 3 min read

The EU's illegal online gambling market swelled to €91.6 billion in 2025 — a 14% year-on-year rise — while member states collectively lost an estimated €22.9 billion in tax revenue to the black market. The data was compiled by Gambling Compliance International (GCI) on behalf of the European Casino Association (ECA) and unveiled at a high-level European Parliament roundtable on 3 July 2026 dedicated to tackling unlicensed gambling across the bloc.

The event assembled MEPs, the European Commission, the Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA), Eurojust, the Joint Parliamentary Scrutiny Group on Europol, and national gambling regulators — a gathering that signals cross-border enforcement has moved firmly onto Brussels' legislative agenda. Illegal operators now account for the majority of online gambling revenue across the EU-27, an alarming threshold the ECA says demands immediate action.

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Scale of the EU Illegal Gambling Problem

More than 6,200 unlicensed operators actively targeted European consumers in 2025, consistent with Yield Sec data recording 6,220 illegal operators in 2024. The black market has grown by an estimated €10 billion in a single year and now generates more gross revenue than the entire licensed online segment across the EU-27 combined.

The table below shows what players gain — and what regulators and public treasuries lose — when gambling migrates to offshore, unlicensed platforms.

Factor	Licensed Operator	Unlicensed Operator
Regulatory oversight	National / EU regulator	None
Player protection tools	Self-exclusion, deposit limits, RG checks	Absent
AML / KYC compliance	Mandatory	None
Tax contribution	Market rate (e.g. 22–37.8% GGR)	Zero
Dispute resolution	Via national regulator	None
GDPR / data protection	Legally required	Unverified

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ECA Pushes to Expand Europol's Mandate

The European Commission tabled a legislative proposal on 24 June 2026 to broaden Europol's operational powers in cross-border crime. The ECA used the July roundtable to press for illegal gambling to be listed as a core priority within that expanded mandate, arguing that black-market operators shift jurisdictions at will and can only be contained through coordinated pan-European law enforcement.

ECA Chair Erwin van Lambaart told delegates that the GCI findings leave no room for ambiguity: the illegal market is growing faster than national enforcement agencies can contain, young adults are being exposed to completely unregulated environments, and the scale of foregone tax revenue now threatens the financial sustainability of regulated markets across the bloc.

The association also backed deployment of the Digital Services Act (DSA) as a parallel enforcement tool, citing its notice-and-action obligations and app-store rules as practical levers for blocking unlicensed gambling sites without waiting for new sector-specific legislation to pass.

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Licensed Operators Squeezed by the Black Market

A €91.6 billion illegal market means licensed EU operators compete against rivals that carry none of the compliance costs, tax burdens, or responsible-gambling obligations built into every licence condition. The disparity is sharpest in markets that have tightened their own frameworks in recent years:

• Netherlands: gambling tax rose from 30.5% to 37.8% between 2025 and 2026, squeezing licensed margins while unlicensed sites operate entirely tax-free.
• Sweden: banned credit- and loan-funded deposits from April 2026, reducing legal gross gaming revenue with no equivalent restriction binding offshore operators.
• Finland: transitioning to a licensed private-operator model from July 2027, partly to recapture player spend currently flowing to unlicensed platforms.

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What EU Regulators Are Doing Now

AMLA formally assumed its supervisory responsibilities in 2026 and, under Regulation (EU) 2024/1624 — which applies directly across all member states from 10 July 2027 — gambling services receive their first EU-level legal definition alongside mandatory, uniform customer due diligence rules.

That framework targets licensed operators: unlicensed sites simply ignore licensing regimes and AML obligations by design. The ECA's central argument at the July roundtable was that AMLA and the new AML regulation, while necessary, are insufficient on their own. Only a combination of expanded Europol authority, coordinated payment-blocking, and ISP-level domain filtering can meaningfully shrink a black market that already dwarfs the regulated sector.

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Sources

Primary sources are listed first; secondary trade coverage follows in publication order.

Illegal online gambling is a fast-growing, cross-border problem that puts players — especially young adults — at high risk, deprives societies of much-needed tax revenues, and undermines trust in the regulated market.

— Erwin van Lambaart, Chair, European Casino Association · European Parliament Roundtable, July 2026