Five countries show that betting ad bans tend to push players toward the illegal market

Brazil is debating restrictions on betting advertising, but the international record is already fairly clear: when regulated operators are pushed into silence, the illegal market usually does not sit still. A comparative review published by iGaming Complete, by consultant Tonet Quiogue of Arden Consult, says the same pattern appears in multiple jurisdictions.

1. Philippines senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero introduced Bill No. 2347, the “Gambling Advertising Ban Act” (GAPA), on 26 July 2026. The bill would ban betting ads and sponsorships across radio, TV, print, websites, apps, and social media, prohibit celebrity and influencer endorsements, and allow licensed operators to advertise only inside their own platforms. Penalties go up to 500,000 Philippine pesos (about US$ 8.1 thousand), with up to three years in prison, license revocation, and deportation for foreign nationals responsible.
2. Italy was the first country to try a total ban, with the 2018 “Decreto Dignità.” Eight years later, the Italian online illegal market is estimated at € 20 billion annually, above the € 11.47 billion legal market. A 2022 parliamentary investigation concluded that illegal gambling and underage gambling kept growing after the ban, the Italian Football Federation called the measure “widely ineffective,” and both the Senate and AGCOM (the media regulator) have already discussed easing it.
3. Belgium adopted an almost total ban in July 2023, and the numbers moved in the wrong direction quickly: the number of players on illegal sites rose 6% and deposits rose 4% in just three months. The number of illegal operators targeting the country increased 4.4 times that year.
4. France never licensed online casinos, and the result is a parallel market that now matters more than the regulated one: 5.4 million players use illegal sites, compared with 3.5 million in the regulated market. The estimated annual tax loss is € 1.2 billion.
5. The Netherlands restricted non-targeted advertising and introduced deposit limits, but the canalization rate — the share of bettors moving into the legal market — fell to 49% in the first half of 2025. For PSPs, that is the point at which a policy meant to protect the licensed market starts looking, in practice, like a channel shift in the opposite direction.

The UK is presented in the source as the counterexample, but the excerpt cuts off before explaining the details. The broader message in the cases above is consistent: ad restrictions do not automatically reduce demand; they can simply make the regulated market less visible while the illegal one keeps its own advertising machine running.