According to the latest joint report of the European Lottery Association (ECA) and the intelligence agency Yield Sec, illegal online lottery dominated the EU digital market in 2024, generating more than twice as much income as the legitimate industry and causing tax losses of more than 20 billion euros in member States.
The Yield Sec study noted that the unlicensed operator held 71 per cent of the EU ‘ s share of online lottery, generating a total revenue of 80.6 billion euros, while the formal operator ‘ s income was only 33.6 billion euros, and the black market became the largest single lottery channel on the European continent. In 2024, more than 6,200 illegal gambling operators were actively targeting EU consumers and 81 million Europeans were exposed to or involved in such illegal services, which lacked consumer protection measures, responsible lottery tools, age certification and tax obligations. Based on the EU’s average effective tax rate of 25 per cent on online lottery, illegal operators estimated last year that 20.2 billion euros of potential tax revenues had been diverted from the EU economies, and that the huge funds transferred could have been used to support key economic strategies, such as public health, industrial upgrading, and workforce development throughout the EU.
Erwin van Lambaart, Chairman of the ECA, warned that the phenomenon constituted a “grave socio-economic threat”: “Every euro that falls into the hands of criminals is equivalent to a euro stolen from the public finances of European citizens, legally held enterprises and communities.” He stressed that ECA would continue to work with EU and national regulatory bodies to protect consumer interests, combat crime and safeguard industry integrity, and ensure that illegal operators did not erode the social value of legal regulatory systems. Yield Sec examined the entire online gaming ecosystem in the 27 EU member States and monitored the activities of legal and illegal operators, advertising networks, payments and player exposure. The report also reveals that online advertising channels (including platforms governed by the EU Digital Services Act) are misused by unlicensed operators to target vulnerable groups, such as minors and self-restricted players; and that some illegal platforms even commit fraud by misappropriation of legal casino brands, circumventing consumer protection rules, liability lottery mechanisms and tax obligations. Ismail Vali, founder and CEO of Yield Sec, stressed the need for regulators and governments to have full access to the full range of legal and illegal markets as a prerequisite for the development of efficient and accurate interventions. “There are two areas of legality and illegality in each jurisdiction. Our approach can truly reflect the current state of the network world by measuring all audiences and their activities. Such transparency is needed by regulators and governments to develop efficient and targeted policies and interventions.”
The Yield Sec model shows that 92 per cent of all online lottery content visible to EU users comes from illegal channels and only 8 per cent from legal licence channels. Regulated operators are constrained by stringent advertising rules and compliance costs, and are finding it increasingly difficult to compete with unlicensed platforms that offer unrestricted bonuses, anonymous payments and no-limits. The report concludes that without coordinated enforcement at the EU level and the fight against digital crime, further regulatory restrictions on licensed operators may push more consumers to the black market. It is worth mentioning that, following a high-level meeting held just before Madrid, European gaming regulators from Germany, Austria, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Portugal and Spain committed themselves to establishing a unified data-sharing mechanism aimed at strengthening the fight against illegal Internet games.
