Ireland's Gambling Regulator Warns Funding Shortfall Will Delay Reforms

^{Leinster House in Dublin, seat of the Oireachtas, which oversees the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland's funding. (Photo: Kevin Gordon / Wikimedia Commons)}

Ireland's gambling regulator has warned that a funding shortfall will push back key reforms, including efforts to regulate "totally unlicensed" remote gaming and overseas-based black-market gambling, until next year.

The Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland (GRAI) set out the warning in a letter to Minister for Justice Jim O'Callaghan earlier this year, according to The Irish Times, which reported that the newly established authority had been given only half the budget allocation it had sought for 2026.

Regulator Says Budget Fell Short of Its Request

The GRAI was established under the Gambling Regulation Act 2024 to license, supervise and control gambling activities in the State, replacing a patchwork of older legislation. Its 2026 allocation stands at €13.32 million, an increase of 92% on its 2025 budget, according to figures the Department of Justice gave the Oireachtas earlier this year.

Despite that year-on-year rise, the authority told the minister the sum fell short of what it had requested to carry out its full remit, forcing it to prioritise phased licensing work over the rollout of remote-gaming oversight and black-market enforcement.

Black-Market and Remote-Gaming Oversight Delayed

The GRAI began issuing Ireland's first remote betting licences on 1 July 2026, with licensing for casinos and gaming machines not expected to open before 2027. The reforms now said to be stalled would extend the authority's reach to operators offering remote gaming to Irish consumers without any Irish licence at all.

The funding shortfall means enforcement work against unlicensed and overseas-based gambling operators, originally planned for this year, will now slip into next year, according to the GRAI's letter to the minister.

The delay comes as the GRAI continues building out its compliance and enforcement functions from a standing start. The authority reported having 40 staff in place as of mid-2026, with recruitment still ongoing to reach full capacity.

Gambling reform campaigners have previously pushed for a faster timeline, including calls from a former Paddy Power chief executive for a higher tax rate on online casinos operating in Ireland. The funding dispute underlines the gap between the scope of the 2024 Act and the resources so far allocated to enforce it.

The Department of Justice has not said whether it will revisit the GRAI's budget before the reforms are rescheduled.

The Gambling Regulation Act 2024 was enacted in October 2024 and established the GRAI as Ireland's first dedicated, independent gambling regulator, replacing oversight that had previously been split across several government departments and local authorities. The authority's powers are being commenced on a phased basis, with ministerial orders progressively switching on its licensing and enforcement functions rather than all at once.

The authority published its first annual report in July 2026, in which chairperson Paul Quinn and chief executive Anne Marie Caulfield described 2025 as a formative year spent building the licensing, compliance and enforcement systems required under the Act. Minister O'Callaghan said at the time that the legislation was built around balancing the rights of citizens to gamble against the rights of legitimate operators to run a lawful business, a balance the funding dispute now threatens to complicate.