Turkey study links gambling addiction growth to payment availability and platform design

A Turkish study prepared with the YEDAM gambling addiction support center says the problem is no longer just about individual choice. The environment matters too: constant platform access, instant payments, and product mechanics that keep users in the game.

1. The research covers the period from 2020 to April 2025 and is based on more than 22,000 hotline calls, 14,458 initial clinical assessments, and 3,767 social services records. The average age of people seeking help was 34.7, about 97% were men, and around 84% had gambling-related debt.
2. Almost half of those surveyed owed more than 100,000 lira, or about $2,000. The most common sources of borrowed money were relatives, at 52%, and banks, at 28%. For PSPs and acquirers, that is the part where “consumer behavior” starts looking a lot like repeated funding under strain.
3. The usual entry point is sports betting, but the study says users have increasingly moved into casino games. Among the risk factors named by the authors are digital wallets, instant credit, opaque payment chains, bonus programs, autoplay, and aggressive retargeting.
4. The authors recommend AI-based transaction monitoring, closer coordination between MASAK, the banking regulator, and law enforcement, deposit limits, expanded self-exclusion tools, and a legal definition of “indirect advertising” for gambling, plus tighter rules for youth media.

For high-risk payment providers, the useful signal here is not just demand growth but the shape of the flow: instant funding, layered payment chains, and platform mechanics that encourage repeat deposits. That combination is exactly where transaction monitoring, limits, and source-of-funds controls start mattering in practice, not just on compliance slides.