United Kingdom: Major Gambling Tax Increases Announced

Just hours before the official budget presentation, the full version of the document leaked online — including plans for the largest gambling tax hike in years for online gambling and sports betting.

How the leak happened

A link to the document was mistakenly published on the website of the Office for Budget Responsibility.

As a result, the market learned about the tax increases before the speech of Chancellor Rachel Reeves, which sparked criticism: the government lost control over the narrative, while operators gained time to prepare.

Key tax changes

🔵 Online gambling: tax increase from 21% to 40% starting April 2026

🔵 Online sports betting: from 15% to 25% in 2027

🔵 New unified rate: 25% on most remote bets starting April 2027 (exceptions include SBT, spread betting, pool betting, horse racing)

🔵 Bingo: 10% tax abolished

🔵 Land-based casinos: tax bands frozen for 2026−27, then indexed by RPI

Market reaction

🔴 PaddyPower, William Hill, and Ladbrokes are closing part of their retail shops

🔴 SkyBet is relocating its headquarters to Malta

🔴 Player costs will rise — operators are passing the tax burden onto customers

🔴 Advertising budgets are shrinking: with £2bn spent last year, operators must optimize marketing under rising tax pressure

🔴 The leak increased political pressure on the government — critics warn of strengthening the offshore segment

Consequences

🔵 Additional revenue expected: £1.1bn by 2029−30

🔵 Bookmakers cancelled betting markets on the tax announcement following the leak

🔵 Operators are preparing for restructuring: jurisdiction changes, retail downsizing, cost optimization

Conclusions

🔴 The tax burden on the online sector is rising sharply

🔴 Companies are adjusting strategies: closures, relocations, marketing cuts

🔴 The leak created political pressure and a negative backdrop for the reform

🔴 Operators able to quickly adapt their structure and financial models will benefit the most

Austria Is Preparing the Biggest Online Gambling Reform in a Decade

The country is finally emerging from years of regulatory stagnation: authorities are preparing a law that will completely restructure the online gambling market by summer 2026. The reform is expected to become one of the most significant in Europe.

What’s happening

Austria has maintained a monopoly through win2day for many years, but the real market has long been dominated by offshore operators licensed in the EU. The new law aims to close the gap between the formal model and actual player behaviour, while strengthening player protection and regulatory oversight.

Key elements of the reform

🔵 A unified self-exclusion system based on the German model — nationwide protection for vulnerable players

🔵 Payment blocking: banking “blacklists” to prevent transfers to illegal websites

🔵 Crackdown on offshore operators: IP blocking remains an option, but financial restrictions are the priority

🔵 Market model still undecided: from a limited number of licenses to full liberalization with strict compliance requirements

🔵 Fiscal transparency: the goal is to bring back revenues currently flowing to the EU or outside Austria’s tax system

Why the reform is necessary

🔴 The monopoly doesn’t work: most players use foreign platforms

🔴 Lack of control: offshore operators bypass KYC, RG, and advertising rules

🔴 Rising risks, from addiction to tax leakage and the absence of protective mechanisms

🔴 Pressure from the EU is growing: Austria remains one of the least aligned with modern regulatory standards

Potential consequences

🔵 Creation of a modern system comparable to other European markets

🔵 Increased competition and entry of international brands

🔵 Reduction of offshore market growth through regulatory measures

🔵 Stronger player protection and harm reduction

But: overly strict rules may push users back to the illegal market.

Conclusions

🔴 Austria is finally moving from declarations to real action

🔴 The stakes are high: the chosen model will define the market for the next 10+ years

🔴 Balancing competition and protection is the key success factor

South Africa: New 20% Online Gambling Tax

South Africa is discussing a proposal from the National Treasury to introduce a 20% national GGR tax on online betting and interactive gambling. The new levy would be added on top of existing provincial taxes and is raising concerns within the regulated market.

Market Snapshot

🔵 Total betting volume in the 2024−2025 fiscal year reached $ 87 billion (+30% YoY)

🔵 Lotteries and online sports betting are the most popular verticals

🔵 The majority of players are aged 25−34

🔵 90% of South Africans have participated in gambling

🔵 Young South Africans spend on average 41% of their income on betting — more than on food

Key Points

🔴 The new 20% tax is expected to generate around $ 580 million in additional revenue

🔴 The main goal of the initiative is to “curb problem and pathological gambling and its negative consequences”

🔴 The total tax burden for online operators would approach 30%

🔴 There is still no unified online gambling law; regulation remains fragmented

Legal Risks

🔵 Interactive gambling is still illegal under current legislation, yet its revenues are proposed to be included in the tax base

🔵 The Constitution assigns key authority to the provinces, and introducing a central tax could violate this principle

🔵 The existing distribution of powers between provinces (licensing, oversight, local taxes) may be weakened

Market Concerns

🔴 No assessment of social harm or transparent methodology behind the tax rate

🔴 Tax revenues are not earmarked for addiction treatment, research, or stronger oversight

🔴 High tax rates combined with weak enforcement increase the risk of player migration to offshore operators

Conclusion

Experts agree that regulation should come before additional taxation. The market needs harmonized rules, a clear legal framework, and economically justified decisions — otherwise, the 20% online tax may reshape the industry in favor of illegal operators.

Tax Increase to 50% in Mexico: Higher Costs, Fewer Competitors

The Mexican iGaming market is entering a period of significant change: the IEPS tax rate will rise from 30% to 50% in 2026. This is the largest tax tightening in recent years.

Licensed operators will need to adapt, but at the same time the reform may reshape the market’s competitive landscape, including by increasing pressure on the illegal segment.

Market Context

🔵 The IEPS increase to 50% has been approved

🔵 The regulator’s focus is shifting toward stronger compliance

🔵 The market currently has a high share of offshore operators

🔵 The 2026 World Cup in Mexico will boost betting demand and overall activity

🔵 Overall trend: the market is becoming less comfortable for operators working outside the legal framework

Reaction of Licensed Operators

🔴 Revising contracts with tech providers and media partners

🔴 Optimizing expenses and reallocating budgets

🔴 Preparing for increased traffic in 2026

🔴 Focusing on a sustainable financial model under the new rules

Changes for the Illegal Segment

🔵 Increased regulatory attention toward offshore operators

🔵 Higher risk of payment channel and traffic blocks

🔵 Possible player migration to offshore platforms if legal operators worsen their offer

Where Market Opportunities Emerge

🔴 A more predictable competitive environment

🔴 More efficient marketing due to reduced competition

🔴 Incentives for technological upgrades and operational restructuring

🔴 The strong sports season of 2026 as a growth catalyst

Conclusions

The tax increase complicates the economics but makes the market more transparent. Legal operators will face rising costs and reduced competition, while illegal operators will see stronger regulatory pressure and potentially more players. Against this backdrop, the 2026 World Cup will become an important growth point for all operators.

New Sanctions Law in Cyprus

On October 20, 2025, Cyprus introduced criminal liability for any actions that benefit sanctioned individuals or companies. Now, any interaction — from providing services to holding funds — may lead to fines or imprisonment.

Context

🔵 The law fulfills the EU requirement to criminalize sanctions evasion

🔵 Applies to citizens, residents, companies, and entities under the Cypriot flag

🔵 Sanctions apply to Russia, Belarus, Iran, and other jurisdictions

🔵 Wording is broad: almost any economic connection may fall under violation

What counts as a violation

🔴 Transactions with sanctioned banks

🔴 Professional services (IT, iGaming, legal, etc.)

🔴 Investments, loans, and other financial operations

🔴 Supporting projects linked to sanctioned structures

🔴 Even renting an office from a “high-risk” company may raise red flags

Liability

🔵 Companies: fines up to € 40M or 5% of annual turnover, risk of losing licenses

🔵 Individuals: fines up to € 100,000 and up to 5 years in prison

🔵 Exceptions apply only to humanitarian aid

What this means for the market

🔴 Businesses will look for alternative jurisdictions with more predictable regulation

🔴 Cyprus stops being a suitable hub for projects working with sanction-sensitive markets

🔴 Partner networks will tighten traffic filtering: volumes may drop while quality requirements rise

🔴 Player acquisition costs from “high-risk” regions will increase due to enhanced compliance checks

What companies should do

🔵 Conduct a full audit of partners and clients

🔵 Update contracts with sanction-compliance clauses and shared liability

🔵 Verify source of funds and avoid transit jurisdictions

🔵 Eliminate any operations involving sanctioned entities

Conclusion

The new law sharply increases risks for iGaming companies: sanctions compliance becomes an essential part of the operating model. Mistakes are now costly, and business resilience depends on the quality of partner verification and transparency of financial flows.

PwC: iGaming Growth in Europe Slows Due to Increasing Taxes

PwC has prepared a report for the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC), highlighting a worrying trend: across European countries, stricter regulations and higher gambling taxes are slowing market growth, pushing players toward unlicensed platforms, and reducing the efficiency of tax collection.

🇬🇧 The UK in the European Context

According to PwC, the UK’s tax and regulatory model is now close to the European average. After raising the Remote Gaming Duty from 15% to 21% in 2019, the UK entered the group of “stable” markets.

Current UK gambling tax rates:

🔵 Horse racing — 25%

🔵 Casino — 21%

🔵 Sports betting — 15%

Market Growth and Tax Revenues

PwC points to a direct link between high taxation levels and slower industry growth:

🔴 In Western European countries where taxes increased between 2019 and 2024, average annual GGR growth was only 6%

🔴 Where tax burdens were kept the same or reduced, growth reached 17% per year

🔴 In Germany, the turnover tax on online slots and poker (5.3%) led to a 50% drop in tax revenues and a significant reduction in available games

Overall, low-tax markets grew by 13% annually, while high-tax jurisdictions grew only by 9%. In the Netherlands, where the gambling tax increased from 30.5% to 34.2%, authorities expect a 9% decrease in tax revenue despite rising betting volumes.

Operator Reaction

🔵 13 out of 19 companies reduced bonus budgets

🔵 15 out of 21 cut advertising spend

🔵 In France and Spain, bonus volumes dropped by nearly 47% after new advertising restrictions were introduced

Players Are Moving Into the “Shadow” Market

🔴 40%-53% of players said they are ready to switch to unlicensed sites

🔴 In France and Germany, nearly half of online players already bet on offshore platforms

🔴 High-stakes users — the top 5% of players — turned out to be the most sensitive to reduced bonuses and payouts

Turkey: Investigation, Arrests, and Mass Suspension of Referees

Turkey has uncovered large-scale involvement of football referees in sports betting. A five-year investigation has resulted in a tough response from the Turkish Football Federation.

What happened

🔵 21 arrest warrants issued, including 17 for referees

🔵 18 people detained — among them a Süper Lig club chairman, a former club owner, and a former association president

🔵 Out of 571 individuals checked, 371 had betting accounts

Investigation details

🔴 152 people were regularly placing sports bets

🔴 Among them: 7 referees, 15 assistants, 36 reserve referees, 94 assistant officials

🔴 42 individuals placed bets on 1,000+ matches

🔴 Absolute record — 18,277 bets from one participant

Sanctions

🔵 149 referees suspended

🔵 Suspension terms: 8−12 months

Context: not just Turkey

In the US, MLB is under investigation: players are suspected of influencing match outcomes. The estimated scheme profit: $ 460,000, with potential prison sentences up to 20 years. Referees, athletes, and club staff are increasingly getting involved — cases are multiplying and spreading across leagues.

Global trend

🔴 UEFA, FIFA, and the IOC are tightening monitoring due to a spike in suspicious incidents

🔴 Most alerts come from lower and regional leagues (easier to hide interference)

🔴 Growing accessibility of online betting increases the number of “insider” attempts

Conclusions

🔵 The issue is becoming transnational, not isolated

🔵 Risks come from insiders — people with direct access to the process

🔵 If referees or players bet themselves, odds lose accuracy: the model predicts one thing, but the match develops differently

🔵 Operators must detect anomalies faster and strengthen integrity checks

How Live Casinos Work Behind the Scenes

Many people believe that live casino dealers work from home — but that’s not true. Let’s take a closer look at how everything actually works in practice.

All live broadcasts are streamed from specialized studios equipped with advanced technology to ensure high-quality video and sound. The process is supervised by a professional team — from technicians to lighting operators — who maintain order on the set and handle the studio’s setup and décor.

Dealers don’t just shuffle cards: each studio has monitors that allow them to follow the game flow and interact with players in real time.

Here are some key aspects of live casino operations:

It’s important to note that video transmission always involves a delay. The latency depends on the type of game: in poker it must be minimal, while in slower games like the Wheel of Fortune, a longer delay is acceptable.

Different data transmission protocols are used:

To protect the stream from fraud, operators use tokenization and DRM (digital rights management) systems.

Only after all these processes are set up does the actual streaming begin. For players, it looks like a simple casino broadcast — but for operators, it’s a complex system that requires constant, daily coordination.

How We Kill Our Own LTV: A Breakdown of Product and Marketing Sins

There’s a paradox haunting us in recent years: the harder we try to maximize short-term profit, the more our long-term revenue declines. We flood users with “irresistible” offers — and their loyalty melts before our eyes. The problem isn’t with the players; it’s with us. We systematically destroy LTV in pursuit of short-term KPIs 🥲

Here’s why users leave:

1. Endless pop-ups everyone hates

We set marketers KPIs for conversion — they set pop-ups for every click. A player just enters the site — boom, a bonus offer. Closes it — another “super deal” appears. We think we’re expanding reach, but in reality we’re creating irritation and killing UX. The customer comes to play, not to be spammed 😬

2. Impossible wagering conditions

And it’s not just about huge wagering requirements. In the race to “minimize risk,” someone builds rule sets that read like legal contracts. Instead of a simple “wager x5,” we get “the amount of the first deposit minus bonus spins but not exceeding 50% of net profit.” The player spends 20 minutes trying to figure it out, feels deceived, and stops trusting us.

3. Promotions that work against us

Some of us are so afraid to simply delight the customer that every promo becomes a trap. Free spins with x50 wagering, cashback with endless exclusions, “personal” offers worse than standard ones. We save pennies while losing trust — the most valuable asset in iGaming 🙁

Why does this happen?

Because our systems operate in silos: marketing reports the number of campaigns launched, product teams report conversion rates per screen, risk managers report the percentage saved on wagering. But no one is responsible for whether the customer comes back a month later.

Until we align all departments’ KPIs around long-term retention, we’ll keep pouring water into a sieve — wondering why we have high conversions but low LTV.

Indonesia Blocks Millions of Gambling-Related Posts

The Ministry of Communications and Digital Technologies of Indonesia has launched a large-scale campaign to clean up the digital space.

From October 2024 to October 2025, the ministry blocked more than 3 million posts, two-thirds of which were related to illegal online gambling.

Scope of the Cleanup

Government Actions

Asian Trend

The tightening of regulations in Indonesia aligns with a broader Asian trend: regional markets are intensifying control over illegal gambling to protect users and stabilize financial flows. Similar measures are already being implemented in Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines.

Conclusion

The Indonesian government aims to block citizens’ access to online gambling by suppressing the activities of operators and intermediaries. The scale of the cleanup suggests that Southeast Asian countries are shifting from selective blocking to a systemic fight against illegal online gambling.

iGaming 2025: Cybersecurity as a Strategic Priority

Cyber threats in online gaming continue to rise — from fraud and data theft to AI-driven attacks that put both players and operators at risk.

According to the SOFTSWISS report “iGaming Trends 2025”, cybersecurity has been identified as one of the key global trends shaping the future of online gaming.

Key Risks

🔵 Player data breaches and fraudulent transactions

🔵 Insider threats and social engineering attacks

🔵 Generative AI enabling sophisticated cyberattacks even by less experienced criminals

Industry surveys show that AI-driven cyberattacks increased by 47% in 2025, with company losses reaching tens of billions of euros.

Operational Changes

🔴 24/7 security monitoring and incident analysis (e.g., the SOFTSWISS Security Operations Center)

🔴 Automation of alert handling and false-positive filtering

🔴 Rapid incident response through cross-functional CSIRT teams

🔴 Use of advanced tools for access control, risk identification, and transaction protection

Examples of Attacks

🔵 Phishing and social engineering targeting operator and supplier staff

🔵 Document and KYC forgery using generative AI

🔵 Automated bot attacks on player accounts using compromised passwords

Why Cybersecurity Matters

Cybersecurity strengthens player trust and corporate reputation, reduces financial losses from fraud and attacks, and ensures compliance with regulatory requirements.

Practical Impact on Operators

🔴 Increased spending on protection and partner-chain audits

🔴 Implementation of multi-layered withdrawal limits and verification checks

🔴 Higher transparency standards and stronger incident readiness

Conclusions

🔵 Cybersecurity is becoming a strategic business asset

🔵 Automation and 24/7 monitoring reduce fraud and loss risks

🔵 Companies that can anticipate and respond to threats quickly gain a competitive edge

🔵 A protected player means trust, stable revenue, and a resilient market

Austria: Transition from State Monopoly to Online Gambling Licensing

The European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA) has unveiled the first-ever industry-wide code of conduct for influencer marketing in online gambling. The goal is to enhance transparency, protect minors, and establish unified standards for EU operators.

Who It Affects

🔵 The rules apply only to licensed EGBA member operators

🔵 EGBA is not a government regulator but sets an industry standard that national authorities may adopt

🔵 The standards cover all influencer content — streams, stories, posts, and videos

What Changes

🔴 Introduction of age filters and mandatory ad labeling

🔴 Cooperation only with verified and trained influencers

🔴 Independent content monitoring, with violations subject to removal — the rules complement the existing EGBA Code of Conduct on Responsible Advertising

Practical Impact on Operators

🔵 Increased compliance and influencer verification costs

🔵 Longer campaign approval processes

🔵 Reduced risk of fines and content bans

Why It Matters

Influencers are a key marketing channel for the gambling industry, especially among younger audiences. Previously, only operators were regulated — now the standards extend to those promoting gambling brands on social media.

Key Takeaways

🔴 The new EGBA standards increase accountability for both operators and influencers

🔴 Content becomes safer, particularly for underage audiences

🔴 Companies must balance marketing goals with transparency and player protection

🔴 The rules could become a foundation for an EU-wide approach and a model for markets beyond Europe

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