Turkey’s anti-offshore iGaming crackdown enters its second month with around 2,000 detained, arrested, or placed under judicial control

Turkey’s multi-agency campaign against people linked to offshore iGaming operators taking players from TR is still expanding. The latest raids add more arrests, and for PSPs and banking partners the message is straightforward: any payment flow tied to Turkish-facing offshore gambling is under sustained law enforcement pressure.

1. The total number of people detained, arrested, or placed under judicial control is now around 2,000, and arrests are still ongoing. In this context, “judicial control” is the Turkish equivalent of a form of court supervision or house-arrest-style restriction.
2. On 23 October, another wave of arrests took place simultaneously in 5 provinces. Around 84 people were detained or arrested, although the exact figure varies slightly across sources. Among them were 52 people who provided their bank accounts for iGaming transactions, 17 direct employees of offshore iGaming operators, 13 C-level managers, and 2 people believed to be CEOs or owners.
3. A parallel gendarmerie operation in 6 provinces led to the detention of 18 offshore iGaming employees responsible for player retention. Investigators say they segmented players into VIP clients, potential VIP clients, and inactive users, then offered bonuses, free bets, and special promotions to reactivate the latter group. A court later ordered pre-trial detention for 17 of the 18 detainees, while one was released under judicial control.
4. On 27 October, Turkish authorities carried out another raid in 18 provinces and detained 55 people. These were programmers and call-center staff working for offshore iGaming operators.
5. The crackdown appears set to continue. According to the source, Turkish law enforcement will keep going after everyone connected to offshore iGaming operators accepting players from TR, and the campaign is being driven from the top by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

For high-risk payments businesses, the useful part is not the political commentary but the operational signal: Turkey is treating offshore iGaming servicing, player acquisition support, retention work, and bank-account provision as parts of the same enforcement target. That widens the risk surface for PSPs, acquirers, banks, call-center vendors, and anyone routing funds linked to Turkish players.