Illegal market accounts for 72 per cent of Europe’s online gambling revenue, new report finds

A new report says unregulated operators generated €91.6bn in online gambling revenue from consumers in the EU 27 in 2025, up from €52.6bn in 2023. For PSPs, the point is not just the size of the flow, but the fact that the report treats the surrounding payment and distribution stack as part of the problem.

1. The study, Online Gambling 2024–2025: EU 27 Europe, was produced by Gaming Compliance International (GCI) for the Campaign for Fairer Gambling (CFG). It says unregulated online operators generated gross gambling revenue (GGR) of €91.6bn from consumers in the EU 27 countries in 2025, compared with €52.6bn in 2023, a rise of 74 per cent over two years.
2. That €91.6bn is presented as an estimated 72 per cent of Europe’s total online gambling market, which the report values at €128bn. The report’s reading is straightforward: a large share of online gambling activity sits outside local regulatory frameworks, with direct implications for consumer protection, taxation, licensing and regulatory supervision.
3. The report also focuses on exposure, not just revenue. It says 121 million people across Europe encountered online gambling content in 2025, and 88 million were reached by material linked to unregulated operators. Among consumers who actively engaged with online gambling content, 91 per cent of the material they saw promoted the unregulated sector.
4. To explain how that happens, the report lists affiliates, social media platforms, advertising networks, search services, mobile applications, payment systems, peer-to-peer communications and illegal streaming services as channels that help operators attract audiences, acquire customers and generate revenue. In other words, the operator may be offshore, but the distribution and monetisation chain is not exactly floating in space.
5. CFG founder Derek Webb said enforcement should target “the wider ecosystem rather than focusing solely on individual operators.” He added: “Europe has an enforcement failure occurring in plain sight. €91.6bn in online gambling revenue was generated outside the local regulatory perimeter in 2025.”

The report’s practical message for high-risk payment players is clear enough: enforcement risk is not limited to the merchant account holder. It extends to the infrastructure that lets unregulated gambling keep processing, advertising and acquiring customers even when domains and websites change.