72% of Europe’s Online Gambling Takes Place on Unregulated Platforms.
Unregulated online gambling generated an estimated €91.6 billion from consumers in the EU in 2025 around 72% of Europe’s online gambling revenue. A new report urges authorities to take a cross-border approach, targeting not only operators but also the networks and services that support them.
A Market Beyond National Oversight
The report, prepared by Gaming Compliance International (GCI) for the Campaign for Fairer Gambling (CFG), examines revenue, consumer exposure and the infrastructure behind gambling outside national regulatory systems. Unregulated operators generated €91.6 billion in gross gambling revenue (GGR) from consumers in the EU’s 27 member states in 2025. That was up from €52.6 billion in 2023, a 74% increase in two years.
The report estimates that unregulated gambling made up 72% of Europe’s €128 billion online market.According to the study, this activity takes place beyond national requirements for consumer protection, taxation, licensing and regulatory supervision.
Millions Encounter Unregulated Gambling Content
Online gambling content reached 121 million people across Europe in 2025, including 88 million who encountered material linked to unregulated operators. Among people who actively engaged with gambling-related content, 91% saw material promoting the unregulated sector. The report identifies a broad range of services that help operators reach potential customers, including affiliates, social media, advertising networks, search services, mobile apps, payment systems, peer-to-peer communications and illegal streaming services.
Report Calls for Enforcement Across the Ecosystem
The report says unregulated operators can continue operating even when websites or domains change, thanks to the wider infrastructure supporting them. It recommends that enforcement agencies address this ecosystem, rather than focusing solely on individual operators.
Read Also: Dario Jurčić takes Digitain CCO role to drive Europe and Africa growth
Derek Webb, founder of the Campaign for Fairer Gambling, commented:
“Europe has an enforcement failure occurring in plain sight. €91.6bn in online gambling revenue was generated outside the local regulatory perimeter in 2025. That scale should focus attention on enforcement – on operators evading local rules and the infrastructure that enables them to reach European consumers. “The answer is not weaker regulation or tax concessions for licensed operators. Europe has an enforcement problem. Unregulated gambling operates across borders, platforms and infrastructure while enforcement remains overwhelmingly national. A licence ‘from somewhere’ is not permission to operate everywhere.”
Ismail Vali, president of Gaming Compliance International and founder and former chief executive of Yield Sec, commented:
“By the time the bet is placed, the battle for the customer may already have been lost. Unregulated gambling is winning audience attention before the consumer ever reaches a gambling site. Six thousand unregulated operators are not six thousand separate problems. They rely on the same ecosystem to advertise, find consumers, distribute products, move money, and stay online. That is also their vulnerability. “You cannot optimise what you do not measure. Europe needs to see the whole marketplace – regulated and unregulated and enforce across the ecosystem that sustains it.”
