Europe's Illegal Online Gambling Market Has Tripled to €12 Billion, Euromat Study Finds

^{Euromat represents Europe's land-based gaming entertainment sector and commissioned the research to support its engagement with regulators. (Photo: Jorge Franganillo / Wikimedia Commons)}

Europe's illegal online gambling market generated an estimated €12 billion in net revenue in 2025, three times its 2019 value and now equal to a quarter of the region's total online gambling sector, according to research published by Euromat on 7 September 2026.

The study was commissioned by Euromat, which represents the land-based gaming entertainment industry in Europe, and carried out by advisory firm Regulus Partners and Helios, a digital research consultancy specialising in gambling web traffic. Euromat described it as the most detailed analysis of the illegal online gambling market ever conducted in Europe, drawing on more than 1,000 hours of forensic work.

Study Covers 28 Markets Including the UK

Researchers analysed 28 European online gambling markets, comprising the EU27 excluding Malta and Luxembourg, plus the UK, Serbia and Montenegro. The methodology combined digital marketing and web traffic analysis with macroeconomic data and regulatory developments in each market, including the impact of affordability checks and other consumer-protection rules.

Filip Jelavić, owner and project lead at Helios, said the research identified the scale, growth trends and causes behind what he called the exponential growth of the black-market ecosystem.

'It's clear that online gambling black markets don't happen by accident but instead are the result of government policies that create consumer friction,' Jelavić said in a statement. 'In such an environment the key drivers are a combination of limited choice based on regulation and state monopolies, low visibility, distortions of price or value, as well as interventionist measures such as affordability checks – which block or inconvenience established consumer behaviour.'

Crypto Growth Cited as a Key Driver

Jelavić said the research found that the largest illegal operators have grown into recognisable brands with substantial market share, helped by the rapid uptake of cryptocurrencies as a way to differentiate their products and work around regulation. He noted that few European jurisdictions currently allow consumers to gamble legally using cryptocurrency, which he said creates pressure from crypto users towards illegal platforms.

He also pointed to affiliate marketing as a persistent enforcement problem, saying affiliate businesses provide a cost-effective way for illegal sites to recruit players that remains difficult to act against even where laws are in place.

Euromat Plans to Use Study With Policymakers

Euromat president Jason Frost said the findings would form the basis of the organisation's engagement with policymakers and law enforcement agencies across its member states, citing UN Office on Drugs and Crime research describing illegal gambling profits as a 'cash cow' for organised crime groups that also fund drug trafficking, human trafficking and firearms smuggling.

'Euromat members uphold the highest levels of integrity and play a key role in terms of delivering value for money entertainment to tens of millions of consumers across Europe,' Frost said. 'Unregulated black-market operators do not pay duties and taxes and with considerably lower overheads are able to promote better returns, driving the migration from legal markets.'

Euromat said the study would 'form the backbone' of a wider engagement programme with governments and enforcement bodies, arguing that its own members support a sensibly regulated market that contributes tax revenue and jobs. The findings add to a broader debate among European regulators, also raised in a recent Interpol-linked crackdown on illegal operators, over how far current channelling and player-protection policies are pushing consumers towards the black market rather than away from it.