Illegal Gambling Costs EU €22.9bn in Lost Tax Revenue

⏱ 3 min read

The illegal online gambling market targeting EU consumers reached €91.6 billion in 2025, stripping EU member states of an estimated €22.9 billion in tax revenue — figures presented at a high-level European Parliament roundtable on 3 July 2026. The study, compiled by Gambling Compliance International (GCI) and commissioned by the European Casino Association (ECA), puts the illegal market’s year-on-year growth at roughly 14%, up from approximately €80 billion in 2024.

More than 6,200 unlicensed operators now actively target European consumers, and illegal platforms collectively account for the majority of online gambling revenue across the EU-27. ECA Chair Erwin van Lambaart told assembled EU lawmakers, European Commission representatives, AMLA, Eurojust, and national regulators that illegal gambling has grown from a niche problem into a structural threat to both public finances and player safety.

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Scale of the Illegal Gambling Problem in the EU

The ECA’s GCI-compiled impact study is the most comprehensive measurement yet of illegal online gambling in the EU. The €91.6 billion figure represents gross gambling revenue — stakes minus winnings — generated by unlicensed platforms from European players in 2025. At €22.9 billion in lost tax, the fiscal damage now exceeds the annual GDP of several individual EU member states.

The roundtable, hosted by MEP Lukas Mandl, was timed to coincide with growing legislative activity at the EU level, including Regulation (EU) 2024/1624 — the AML package introducing the first bloc-wide statutory definition of “gambling services” — which takes direct effect from 10 July 2027. Participants underscored that regulatory progress on AML compliance alone will not close an illegal market that operates entirely outside licensing regimes.

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Player Harm and Market Integrity

Unlicensed platforms identified in the study share characteristics that pose direct, measurable risks to European bettors:

• No age verification or identity checks at registration
• Aggressive marketing targeting vulnerable and problem gamblers
• No self-exclusion tools or responsible gambling mechanisms
• Player funds held with no segregation or consumer protection guarantees
• Infrastructure routinely exploited to facilitate money laundering

The ECA noted that the EU makes no regulatory distinction between a “grey market” and outright illegal operators — a platform is either licensed in the relevant member state or it is illegal. That binary clarity makes the 6,200+ active unlicensed sites a hard enforcement target rather than a policy grey area.

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Enforcement Gaps Across Member States

Enforcement remains fragmented because illegal gambling operators deliberately structure across multiple jurisdictions. A single unlicensed brand may be incorporated outside the EU, process payments through third-country banks, host servers in non-cooperative jurisdictions, and serve players across a dozen member states simultaneously. No individual national regulator holds the mandate to dismantle such operations unilaterally.

The study found that country-level enforcement actions — domain-blocking orders, payment disruption, advertising bans — are circumvented almost immediately, as operators reroute through new domains and alternative payment channels. MEP Lukas Mandl described illegal online gambling as “a serious cross-border threat” affecting consumer protection and EU internal market integrity, calling for enforcement coordination matched to the geographic scale of the problem.

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Policy Response and Industry Demands

The ECA used the Parliament roundtable to press for four concrete shifts in EU-level policy:

• Strengthen formal cooperation between national gambling regulators, financial intelligence units, and EU-level agencies
• Expand Europol’s operational mandate to cover illegal gambling as a cross-border organised crime priority — consistent with a 24 June 2026 European Commission legislative proposal on Europol’s powers
• Deploy AMLA’s supervisory framework to cross-check licensed operators against networks linked to illegal platforms
• Create structured public-private cooperation so regulated operators can share real-time intelligence on unlicensed competitors

ECA Chair Erwin van Lambaart framed the response required in clear terms: "This is why we need strong political will and strengthened public-private cooperation" to match the cross-border reach of illegal operations.

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EU vs Illegal Market: By the Numbers

Metric	2024	2025	Change
Illegal market GGR (EU-targeted)	~€80 billion	€91.6 billion	+~14%
Lost tax revenue (EU member states)	Not disclosed	€22.9 billion	—
Active unlicensed operators targeting EU	Not disclosed	6,200+	—
Illegal share of EU online gambling revenue	Minority	Majority	Tipping point crossed
EU-level AML framework for gambling	None	Reg. (EU) 2024/1624 enacted	Applies July 2027

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Sources

Primary and secondary sources used in this article, listed in order of citation.

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

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