Paf and Facebook launch Swiss pilot to block black market gambling ads

Paf has agreed a pilot with Facebook to stop illegal operators from reaching Swiss players through the platform, with work set to begin next week. For high-risk operators and PSPs, the interesting part is not the social-media angle; it is the attempt to build a reusable verification model around licence status, URLs, and regulator input.

1. Paf director Jesper Eliasson announced the pilot at SBC Summit Lisbon during the “Scandinavia: High Tax, High Standards, High Stakes” panel. He said the project was “absolutely fresh” and that the agreement had been decided on the day of the announcement.
2. Under the pilot, Paf will share selected data with Meta, including licence documents and URLs, so Facebook can better distinguish between regulated and unregulated operators. The scope covers both operators and affiliates.
3. The practical problem is familiar: offshore operators use creatives that can slip around Facebook’s systems, while Europe’s patchwork of licensing makes verification messy. Eliasson said the Swiss market is the starting point, with the idea of testing a model there that could later be scaled to other jurisdictions.
4. The choice of Switzerland is also tied to Paf’s business there. Paf is the technology partner behind mycasino.ch, which launched in 2019 and, according to Eliasson, reached €70 million in revenue after 16 months. The brand now holds more than 30% of the market, and Grand Casino Luzern says the site now generates more than €100m in annual revenue.
5. Paf said it is investing “nothing. Only time and talks” and plans to involve the Swiss regulator in the process. Eliasson said the aim is to put Facebook, the regulator, and the operator “around the table” to improve enforcement against illegal ads and protect licensed market share.

The timing matters. Just days earlier, Dutch trade body VNLOK served Meta with a court summons over illegal gambling ads on Facebook and Instagram. Paf is taking the opposite route: not litigation, but a working arrangement with the platform to make licence checks harder to game.