EGBA Names Pierre Tournier Interim Chief After 13 Years of Haijer

The European Gaming and Betting Association changes leadership on 1 September, with Maarten Haijer stepping down after 13 years as Secretary General. His successor has named the illegal market as the priority.

• The European Gaming and Betting Association has appointed Pierre Tournier as interim Secretary General with effect from 1 September 2026
• Tournier joined EGBA in November 2025 as Senior Director, and previously held senior positions at the Betting and Gaming Council and the Remote Gambling Association, with over 15 years in the online gambling sector
• He replaces Maarten Haijer, who has been Secretary General since 2013 and spent close to two decades with the association
• Tournier said he takes on the role at a pivotal moment, with Europe's regulatory landscape evolving quickly and combating the illegal market central to the association's work
• Haijer said he leaves the association in a strong position and in very capable hands

Thirteen Years Is a Long Tenure in a Fragmented File

EGBA is the Brussels trade body for Europe's licensed online gambling operators, and its Secretary General is the sector's most visible interlocutor with the European institutions. Haijer has held the post since 2013 and been with the association for close to twenty years, a period covering the collapse of any serious prospect of EU-level gambling harmonisation, the shift to national licensing across most member states, and the arrival of the anti-money laundering and consumer protection files that now shape the sector far more than gambling-specific law does.

Tournier arrives with the relevant background. He came to EGBA in November 2025 as Senior Director, and before that held senior roles at the Betting and Gaming Council, the British industry body, and at the Remote Gambling Association, its predecessor on the remote side. That is more than 15 years across the industry's representative organisations, and it is a lineage weighted towards the United Kingdom, which is now outside the union EGBA lobbies within.

The appointment is explicitly interim. The association has not said whether Tournier is a candidate for the permanent role or whether a wider search is running.

Naming the Illegal Market Is a Deliberate Choice of Ground

The first public statement of a trade body's new leader is a positioning document, and Tournier's names one priority. Framing the association's work around the illegal market is the strongest available argument for a licensed industry facing tightening national rules, because it converts every restriction debate into a channelisation debate: the question becomes not whether a measure protects players but whether it moves them somewhere with no protection at all. It is also the argument on which EGBA has the best evidence, and the one where its interests genuinely align with regulators rather than opposing them. National regulators have been moving against unlicensed platforms directly, with Spain blocking Polymarket and Kalshi during an unlicensed gambling investigation, which is precisely the kind of enforcement a licensed-operator association wants more of.

An Interim Appointment Slows the Sector Down at a Bad Time

The timing is not ideal. The European regulatory landscape is moving on several fronts at once, from advertising restrictions in individual member states to the coordinated response to unlicensed operators, and an interim Secretary General negotiates with less authority than a permanent one. Counterparts in Brussels know when they are dealing with a caretaker. Set against that, promoting from within after nine months rather than appointing an outsider preserves continuity of files and relationships, which in a slow-moving institutional environment is worth more than a fresh mandate. The risk is drift rather than error.

A thirteen-year tenure ends and the sector's Brussels voice changes register. The word interim is the one to watch.