EGBA names Lithuanian fintech Walletto over alleged black market gambling deposits

The European Gaming and Betting Association has filed a complaint with the Bank of Lithuania, saying a local licensed payments provider, Walletto, facilitated transactions to illegal online gambling operators. For PSPs and acquirers, the point is blunt: if a payments stack can reach unlicensed gambling, it becomes part of the enforcement problem.

1. The case was raised after an investigation in Lithuania, where EGBA said a local licensed payments provider, Walletto, had helped process deposits to illegal gambling sites. The association has now pushed the issue to the Bank of Lithuania.
2. The original complaint to EGBA has not been officially confirmed, but the text says it could have come from either Betsson or Entain, both licensed operators in the Lithuanian betting market and members of the trade body.
3. EGBA said illegal gambling operators “cannot operate at scale without access to payments” and depend on the same mainstream payment methods and card networks consumers use every day. In other words, the payment layer is not a side issue here; it is the operating model.
4. The association’s current estimate puts the value of the illegal gambling market in Europe at around €18bn, or 27% of the total domestic online gambling market share. That is the scale regulators and PSPs are dealing with when they talk about blocking black market flows.
5. Maarten Haijer, EGBA Secretary General, said payment providers should not be allowed to process transactions for illegal gambling operators, and added that card schemes also have a crucial role to play because they set the rules for these payment flows.

EGBA is now calling for stricter EU-wide rules for financial service providers and their interaction, “accidental or not,” with illegal gambling websites. For PSPs and card programs, that means the compliance question is not just whether a merchant is licensed on paper, but whether the funds trail can touch prohibited operators anywhere in the chain.