Illegal gambling operators control 71% of the European Union\u2019s online betting and casino market, with revenues reaching \u20ac80.65 billion, as regulators struggle to crack down on cryptocurrency casinos and illicit bets.<\/p>\n
According to data from Yield Sec, cited by Bloomberg, gross revenue from illegal gambling has increased by 53% since 2023. Yield Sec, a data analytics firm that tracks online markets, defines illegal platforms as those that are not licensed in the markets they target or operate in.<\/p>\n
In fact, the growth of unlicensed platforms in European Union countries has outpaced that of the legal gambling industry, whose revenues increased by 30% to \u20ac33.64 billion.<\/p>\n
The overall market grew 46% year-on-year to \u20ac114.3 billion.<\/p>\n
Authorities across Europe have tightened rules in recent years in an effort to reduce the impact of gambling, restricting advertising, bonuses and product design. But those measures have also created opportunities for unlicensed operators to lure customers with tax-free offers, quick sign-ups and free illegal streaming of sports, Yield Sec found.<\/p>\n
\u201cCrime will continue to thrive in the absence of monitoring, policing, enforcement and optimization,\u201d Yield Sec founder Ismail Vali told Bloomberg. \u201cLegal operators need to learn to work together.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rise in illegal gambling has been fueled by a rich sporting calendar. The Paris Olympics and the Euro 2024 football tournament drove fans to betting sites.<\/p>\n
The increasingly expensive subscriptions required for consumers to watch these broadcasts have also fueled demand for pirated sports streaming, a channel increasingly exploited by unlicensed gambling operators to attract new players.<\/p>\n
The European Gaming and Betting Association has estimated total gross online gambling revenue in Europe (the 27 EU countries and the UK) at \u20ac47.9 billion by 2024, according to a March report. This figure includes online lotteries, which Yield Sec does not include.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Illegal gambling operators control 71% of the European Union\u2019s online betting and casino market, with revenues reaching \u20ac80.65…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378561,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3091],"tags":[51,188,1700,2441,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-378560","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-markets","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-markets","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115102714790417527","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}