As its licensed gambling market reaches €1.55 billion, Slovakia's regulator has signed two May 2026 memoranda, building a multi-source database with Digitálna koalícia and embedding gambling-harm training at a Nitra university to shield minors from unlicensed offshore operators.
The Office for the Regulation of Gambling (ÚRHH) and the Institute for the Regulation of Gambling (IPRHH) have moved to tighten protections for minors against unlicensed online operators through a pair of cooperation agreements signed in May 2026. According to the IPRHH, the institute and digital-safety organisation Digitálna koalícia formalised a memorandum on 5 May 2026 whose stated aim is to make risky online gambling content as inaccessible as possible to children and minors. The arrangement combines the institute's sector expertise with the coalition's technical tools to identify and restrict access to sites linked to illegal gambling. Both bodies framed the partnership as a contribution to a safer internet for the user groups most exposed to harmful content.
The agreement lands as the ÚRHH assumes a broader remit. The regulator confirmed it became the primary consumer-protection supervisory authority for the national gambling sector on 1 January 2026, with a dedicated consumer-protection department established from 1 February 2026. Over the same period the licensed market has expanded, with the authority reporting gross gambling revenue of €1.55 billion, a 7.2% rise over 2024. Director General Libuša Baranová has argued that unlicensed foreign platforms make heavy use of social media to reach vulnerable users, including minors, while bypassing the responsible-gambling controls that bind licensed betting firms.
The centrepiece of the IPRHH partnership is an expanded database of risky and illegal gambling sites that, according to the institute, will supplement rather than replace the official blocklist maintained by the ÚRHH. The IPRHH says the database will draw on four sources: publicly available information from within Slovakia, regulatory experience from other European Union (EU) member states, output from non-profit organisations that treat gambling addiction, and continuous monitoring of emerging illegal platforms. Dávid Lenčéš, Executive Director of the IPRHH, said that only by linking expert knowledge with technological solutions can such digital threats be countered effectively.
Alongside the digital measure, the ÚRHH has extended its strategy into social care and education. The teraz.sk news agency reported that on 7 May 2026 the authority signed a memorandum with the Faculty of Social Sciences and Health at Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra. The agreement is designed to connect regulatory practice with the academic preparation of future social workers and psychologists, and provides for expert lectures, workshops on gambling regulation and addiction prevention, and cooperation on theses and research. Director General Baranová said the goal is to build a safe and responsible gambling market, which requires a deep understanding of social processes, while Faculty Dean Tomáš Sollár said the partnership strengthens the link between education and practice.
The IPRHH says the protective measures will be directed in particular at pupils from socially disadvantaged backgrounds and students with special educational needs, with safeguards delivered through a national internet-access project so that protections are active at the point of connection. The institute frames the initiative as preventive in character, deliberately distinguished from the regulator's official blacklist. Officials have also flagged newer formats popular with younger audiences, including crash games and esports betting, as areas requiring closer regulatory attention. Readers tracking comparable measures across the region can consult the iGaming Times regulatory map and glossary for definitions of the verticals named.
At its core, Slovakia's drive is an attempt to widen channelisation by removing the offshore options that compete with licensed sites. The €1.55 billion in regulated revenue reported by the ÚRHH shows a sizeable legal market, yet the regulator's own emphasis on social-media acquisition concedes that unlicensed operators continue to find an audience. A supplementary database that aggregates intelligence faster than a static blocklist is a reasonable response to that agility, because the enforcement value of any blocklist depends on how quickly new domains are added. The structural question is whether faster identification translates into faster blocking at the network level.
The strategy's reliance on social-media exposure exposes a jurisdictional gap that national tools cannot close alone. Slovak authorities can compel domestic internet service providers and licensed operators, but they hold limited leverage over global platforms whose algorithms surface offshore marketing to minors. Pooling regulatory experience from other EU member states, as the IPRHH database intends, is a sensible hedge, yet it substitutes information-sharing for genuine enforcement reach. Until EU-level rules compel platforms to gatekeep gambling content consistently, a national regulator's writ stops at its borders while the advertising does not.
The academic memorandum is the part of the package least dependent on technology holding up over time. Training future social workers and psychologists to recognise and treat gambling harm builds a public-health capacity that persists regardless of how quickly blocking measures are circumvented, and it directly addresses the newer verticals officials have named. It is also the slowest to deliver returns, since curriculum changes affect cohorts years from frontline practice. The bottom line is that Slovakia has assembled a coherent, multi-layered response that correctly identifies offshore social-media marketing as the central threat to minors. Its success will hinge less on the database itself than on whether faster intelligence can be converted into enforcement and whether cross-border advertising can be reached at all.
