Posted on: December 30, 2025, 08:43h.
Last updated on: December 30, 2025, 08:49h.
Bulgaria may have just discovered a miraculous new medical treatment: a hospital stay so rejuvenating that nearly 4,000 patients felt healthy enough to hit the casino floor — 22,000 times this year.
A.I. renders a hospital patient gambling at a casino. (Image: GROK)
According to the National Revenue Agency (Bulgaria’s IRS), 3,890 people who were officially listed as hospitalized were recorded entering casinos during those hospital stays in the first half of 2025.
This apparent insurance fraud wasn’t uncovered by accident. The National Revenue Agency began collaborating this year with the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF), which manages Bulgaria’s universal healthcare system, cross-checking hospital records against casino visitor data.
The result? Success beyond their wildest imaginations.
All on Code Red!
The NHIF has launched a full investigation. However, until it’s complete, the agency’s deputy director urges people to keep their pitchforks holstered.
“Let’s not call them fraudulent hospitalizations yet,” Prof. Momchil Mavov told sbcnews.co.uk. “This is just one version (of the truth) we’ve been working on … over the last six months.”
The concern: some hospitalizations may never have happened at all. Fraudsters can use a person’s identity, without their knowledge, to create fictitious admissions, then bill the NHIF for treatments that were never performed
Mavrov noted that some cases may also involve patients simply wandering out of the hospital without permission — a violation of medical‑facility rules, but not necessarily organized fraud.
Under Bulgaria’s current gambling rules, every casino visitor must scan a valid ID, and operators must upload those logs — along with real‑time deposit and payout data — directly to the servers of National Revenue Agency (Bulgaria’s IRS).
Mavrov said the suspicious hospitalizations may have cost his country’s taxpayers $4.2 million (converted to US dollars) in the first six months of 2025.