Europe Raises the Regulatory Bar for Gambling

Europe still has no single gambling law, but it is adding more cross-border rules on top of a patchwork of national regimes. For operators and PSPs, that means more licensing work, tighter AML controls, and fewer shortcuts around identity checks, payment traceability, and compliance.

1. There is no unified EU gambling statute. Spain operates under Ley 13/2011, Germany under the Glücksspielstaatsvertrag, and the Netherlands under the Wet Kansspelen op afstand. In practice, regional operators have to deal with different licenses, technical requirements, and compliance obligations in each market.
2. The scale of that fragmentation shows up in European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA) numbers. Its members held 321 licenses across 21 European countries in 2024 and processed 177.700 million individual bets, which is a neat way of saying the big players are already spread across multiple jurisdictions.
3. Now the European layer is tightening. The Anti-Money Laundering Regulation (AMLR), adopted as Regulation (EU) 2024/1624, will apply mainly from 10 July 2027. For gambling, that means higher requirements for customer identification and verification, risk assessment, due diligence, and transaction monitoring.
4. Directive (EU) 2024/1640 also brings gambling into the same framework and sets out provisions that national lawmakers will have to transpose into local law. On top of that, the European Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) will strengthen coordination and supervision at the EU level.
5. The direction of travel is clear: more convergence around financial crime prevention, identity verification, payment traceability, and risk management. But national governments are still changing their own rules on licensing, supervision, advertising, and consumer protection, so operators are dealing with two moving targets at once.

Two reforms stand out for 2027. Finland will open its online market to a licensing system on 1 July 2027, ending Veikkaus’s monopoly over betting and certain categories of digital gambling. Licensed operators will face requirements on identification, financial limits, self-exclusion, and advertising, with a new authority taking over supervision.

Ireland is moving through a different channel. The Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland (GRAI), created by the Gambling Regulation Act 2024, will oversee both land-based and online gambling, with new rules on licensing, compliance, advertising, and consumer protection. Finland is opening the door; Ireland is building a stronger gatekeeper.