The growth markets
The markets of Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the eastern Mediterranean are where European online gambling is growing fastest and where regulation is changing most often. Most licensed online gambling between 2015 and 2020, several have rewritten their laws since, and the pattern that emerges is a compressed version of Western Europe's: license, tax, then tighten advertising and player protection as the market matures. Ireland, at the other end of the continent, is building a regime from scratch and shows what a regulator designed in the 2020s looks like. This lesson covers the region briefly, market by market, and closes with the direction of European regulation as a whole.
Poland and the Czech Republic
Poland's 2017 amendment to its Gambling Act licensed private operators for online sports betting only, reserved online casino and poker to the state monopoly (which launched its online casino in 2018), and blocked unlicensed sites through a register maintained by the finance ministry with payment and domain blocking. Betting is taxed at 12 per cent of stakes, which produces poor odds for customers and a persistent unlicensed market; the state casino monopoly channels a fraction of casino demand. Reform proposals to license private casino operators recur and have not passed.
The Czech Republic's 2017 Gambling Act opened online licensing to EU operators with a Czech presence, taxed by product (rates raised in 2024 to 30 per cent for most games and 35 per cent for lotteries and technical games, with betting at 23 per cent), and introduced a national exclusion register, mandatory identity verification and player limits. Amendments in 2024 tightened advertising, expanded blocking of unlicensed sites and adjusted the licensing process. The Czech market is the region's most orderly and its regulator publishes a blocklist that has grown into the hundreds.
Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary
Romania licensed online gambling in 2015 under the Oficiul Național pentru Jocuri de Noroc (ONJN), with class I licences for operators and class II licences for suppliers, affiliates, payment providers and other service companies, a model that licenses more of the supply chain than any other in Europe. Tax on gross gaming revenue was raised to 21 per cent in 2023, with an additional turnover-based levy and licence fees; 2024 legislation required licensed operators to be established in Romania, restricted advertising (billboard limits, content rules, a ban on promotions outside operators' own channels) and tightened the responsible-gambling framework. The market is large for the region and the regulatory changes have been frequent enough that the licence conditions in force should always be checked against the current text.
Bulgaria licenses through the National Revenue Agency, which took over from a dedicated commission in 2020, at a tax of 20 per cent of gross gaming revenue with fees; it restricts advertising (a 2024 law banned most gambling advertising in media with exceptions for the state lottery and sports betting sponsorship) and maintains a blocklist. Hungary, after a decade in which online casino was reserved to the state and online betting to a single concession, opened online sports betting licensing to private EU operators from 2023 under a new law with a substantial licence fee and a tax on revenue; online casino remains tied to land-based concessions.
The Balkans, Greece and Cyprus
Croatia enacted a new gambling law in 2024 and 2025 that introduced identity verification at registration against the national identity system, a national self-exclusion register, restrictions on advertising (with a ban on advertising between six in the morning and eleven at night on most channels) and higher fees, replacing a regime that had been among the most liberal in Europe. Serbia licenses online operators under a 2020 law with a tax on revenue and a deposit requirement; Slovenia, Bosnia, Montenegro and North Macedonia have smaller regimes with varying degrees of openness; and the region's operators serve one another's markets under local licences.
Greece licensed online operators in 2020 under the Hellenic Gaming Commission after a decade of transitional licences, with a tax of 35 per cent on gross gaming revenue, a licence fee of several million euros for seven years, product restrictions (a stake limit and a minimum spin time for online slots, a jackpot cap), a national self-exclusion register and strict advertising rules. Cyprus licenses online sports betting only, under the National Betting Authority, and prohibits online casino, in the French pattern.
Ukraine and the region's east
Ukraine legalised gambling in 2020 after an eleven-year prohibition, licensing online casino and betting under a commission that was replaced in 2025 by a new regulator with a digital licensing platform, alongside a tax on gross gaming revenue and a state online monitoring system; the market has developed under wartime conditions with the regulator active against unlicensed operators and, in 2025, against sponsorship and advertising it judged excessive. The Baltic states run licensed markets of their own: Lithuania licenses online gambling with a tax on revenue and enacted a comprehensive gambling advertising ban from 2025; Latvia and Estonia license with revenue taxes, blocklists and self-exclusion, Estonia having become a licensing base for operators leaving offshore jurisdictions.
Switzerland
Switzerland's Money Gaming Act, in force since 2019, permits online casino games only through the country's land-based casinos, which hold extended concessions, and online betting only through the two lottery companies; foreign operators are blocked by a DNS blocklist maintained by the regulators. The model, land-based anchoring in the Belgian pattern with a monopoly for betting, produces a small licensed online market and a large blocklist, and the concessions were re-tendered for the period from 2025.
Ireland: a regime built in the 2020s
Ireland regulated gambling under laws from 1931 and 1956 until the Gambling Regulation Act 2024, which created the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland (GRAI), established in March 2025, with a licensing regime for betting, gaming and lotteries, online and land-based, phased in from 2026. The Act's design shows what a regulator writes when it can see everyone else's experience: a national exclusion register, a ban on the use of credit cards, a watershed on gambling advertising between half past five in the morning and nine at night, powers to restrict advertising volume and content, a prohibition on inducements to specific groups, a social impact fund financed by a levy on licensees, and a licensing structure that covers B2B suppliers and remote operators. Ireland's licensing rounds began in 2026, with the transition from the old bookmaking permits running alongside; for operators it is the newest large licence in Europe and the one whose conditions are being written now.
The direction of European regulation
Across every market in this course, the same measures arrive in the same order. Licensing replaces monopoly or prohibition, with tax on gross gaming revenue and a national self-exclusion register. Advertising is then restricted: role models, watersheds, sponsorship, volume, and in Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Lithuania, near-total bans. Player protection is centralised: identity verification against national systems, deposit limits (default or mandatory in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium; customer-set elsewhere), duty-of-care monitoring, and cross-operator systems like Germany's LUGAS. Products are constrained: stake limits and spin speeds for slots in Britain, Germany and Greece; bonus restrictions in Sweden, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands; credit bans in Britain, Sweden and Ireland. Tax rises: Britain to 40 per cent, the Netherlands to 37.8, Denmark to 28, Sweden to 22, the Czech Republic to 30. Suppliers are licensed: Sweden, Romania, Denmark, Finland and Ireland require B2B licences, and the trend is spreading. And enforcement hardens: blocklists, payment blocking, action against affiliates and media, and cross-border cooperation among regulators since 2024.
The counter-pressure is channelisation. Every tightening produces an argument that players are leaving for unlicensed sites, evidence on both sides, and, occasionally, a concession: Germany's 2026 stake-limit increase, the Netherlands' reconsideration of its tax after revenue fell short, the recurring proposals to license casino in France and Poland. The European regime of the 2030s will be stricter than today's on protection and advertising, will license more of the supply chain, and will be judged, market by market, on whether the licensed share holds.
What to take from this lesson
Poland licenses betting only, with a stakes tax and a state casino monopoly; the Czech Republic licenses broadly at rates raised in 2024. Romania licenses operators and the whole supply chain through the ONJN with frequent changes; Bulgaria and Hungary have opened partially with advertising restrictions. Croatia's 2024 and 2025 law tightened a liberal market; Greece licenses at 35 per cent with slot restrictions; Cyprus and France exclude online casino. Ukraine relicensed under a new regulator in 2025; the Baltics license with advertising bans arriving. Switzerland anchors online casino to land-based concessions. Ireland's 2024 Act created the GRAI, with licensing from 2026, a credit ban, an advertising watershed and a levy. Across Europe the order is constant: license, tax, restrict advertising, centralise protection, constrain products, license suppliers, enforce, with channelisation the argument that occasionally reverses a step.