EU iGaming weekly: Lords ad ban, Europe’s €12bn black market, £4.8bn UK slots

The House of Lords Liaison Committee asked ministers to ban gambling advertising outright, the UK industry GGY reached £17.5 billion, and research commissioned by Euromat put Europe’s illegal online market at €12 billion.

This week at a glance

• The House of Lords Liaison Committee asked ministers on 17 September to ban gambling advertising outright and to drop the objective of growing the sector.
• A public health research consortium told DCMS that its sponsorship ban should cover licensed operators, not only unlicensed ones.
• Gambling Commission data put industry GGY at £17,456 million for the year to March 2026, with online slots at £4,790 million.
• Research commissioned by EUROMAT valued Europe’s illegal online gambling market at €12 billion in net revenue for 2025.
• Belgium’s online gross gaming revenue rose 5.41% to €964.5 million, while first-time online registrations fell 43.1%.

Five biggest stories of the week

1. Lords committee asks ministers to ban gambling advertising

The House of Lords Liaison Committee published a follow-up report on 17 September 2026 that asks ministers to ban gambling advertising outright and to abandon the objective of growing the sector. The report calls a comprehensive ban the most effective policy option for reducing gambling harms. The formal recommendation suggests the Government should make sure it has the powers to impose a ban and should evaluate how one might be implemented.

If ministers do not go that far, the committee sets out a fallback list. It wants a single statutory regulator for gambling advertising, an end to advertising on kit and at venues, a television restriction during sports broadcasts, bans on inducements and on direct and content marketing, a licensing regime for affiliates, and a mandatory restriction on serving gambling advertising to under-25s. 

Baroness Twycross told the committee that the Government had no plans to legislate on advertising at this time. The committee expects a response within the usual two-month deadline.

2. Researchers press DCMS to extend the sponsorship ban to licensed firms

Local Health and Global Profits, a public health research consortium, published its consultation response on 9 September 2026, the day the Department for Culture, Media and Sport closed its eight-week consultation. The consultation proposes banning physical sponsorship and advertising by operators that do not hold a Gambling Commission licence, covering kit, stadium billboards, programmes and venue infrastructure across all sectors. The consortium asked for the ban to extend to online and digital platforms immediately, and to cover the marketing of licensed operators as well.

Its argument rests on the balloon effect: if only unlicensed firms are restricted, operators buy more licensed sponsorship and total exposure stays where it was. The Betting and Gaming Council wants the opposite change, with the ban extended to stop illegal firms sponsoring any sport rather than widened to licensed operators. DCMS has not yet published its response.

3. UK industry GGY reaches £17.5 billion as online casino grows

The Gambling Commission published its annual industry statistics for April 2025 to March 2026 on 17 September 2026. Industry GGY came to £17,456 million, up from £16,728 million. Remote casino is now the largest single sector at 32.7% of the total, ahead of the National Lottery at 19.9%. Remote casino GGY rose 14.8% to £5,699 million, and slots accounted for 84.0% of that at £4,790 million.

Betting fell on both channels. Remote betting GGY was £2,448 million, down 6.6%, with football down to £1,165 million from £1,330 million. Non-remote betting fell 3.3% to £2.4 billion. There were 5,617 betting shops in Great Britain at the end of March, 208 fewer than a year earlier and the 12th consecutive reporting period in which the number has declined. The next annual figures are due in autumn 2027.

4. Euromat research puts Europe’s illegal online market at €12 billion

Research commissioned by the European Gaming and Amusement Federation valued Europe’s illegal online gambling market at €12 billion in net revenue in 2025, three times the 2019 total and equal to 25% of all online gambling activity across the region. The study was carried out by Regulus Partners and Helios and assessed 28 markets: the EU27 excluding Malta and Luxembourg, plus the UK, Serbia and Montenegro. 

Filip Jelavić, owner and project lead at Helios, attributed the growth to domestic policy rather than to the conduct of illegal operators alone, pointing to limited choice, low visibility, distortions of price or value, and interventionist measures such as affordability checks. He said cryptocurrency had been central to building many of these businesses, and that affiliates give smaller unlicensed sites a cheap route to players. EUROMAT president Jason Frost said the study will underpin the federation’s engagement with policy makers and law enforcement agencies across member states.

5. Belgium’s online revenue rises as new player numbers drop

The Kansspelcommissie’s 2025 annual report put online gross gaming revenue at €964.5 million, up 5.41%, while land-based revenue fell 7.17% to €656.1 million. Total GGR was €1.62 billion, down 0.07%, with online play accounting for 59.51% of the regulated market. Online casino licence holders took €554.1 million, up 12.99%, while arcade licence holders fell 13.66% to €165.8 million.

The number of people registering with a licensed online operator for the first time fell 43.1% to 110,032. The regulator said a small part of that decline is explained by the law that raised the minimum gambling age from 18 to 21 on 1 September 2024. 

Voluntary self-exclusions stood at 66,998 at the end of the year, against 56,458 a year earlier. BAGO, which represents five licensed Belgian operators, said the figures confirm consumers are turning to the illegal market, citing a KSC survey in which 28% of respondents aged 18 to 30 said they had played on an illegal site.

What to watch next week

The Lords committee expects a comprehensive Government response within two months, though select committee recommendations do not bind ministers, and the report sets no timetable of its own. The committee also wants ministers to prioritise removing the section 333(6) limit in the Gambling Act 2005, which keeps online advertising carried by EEA-established platforms outside secondary legislation. DCMS has still to publish its response to the sponsorship consultation that closed on 9 September.

In Britain, the next fixed date in the calendar is the 25% rise in Gambling Commission operating licence fees on 1 October. EUROMAT has said it will take its research to policymakers and law enforcement across member states, and BAGO has urged the Belgian government to prioritise action against the illegal market and its financial flows.

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