The betting industry is incredibly highly regulated for the sake of ensuring customers stay safe when placing a bet. However, this only applies to official, licenced, and regulated casinos; given this, there’s a huge amount of risk when people instead turn to black market providers, where the chances of getting scammed or caught up in a dangerous cycle of chasing losses is significantly higher. So, with the arrival of a new gambling regulator, the key question arises: will they at last be able to combat black market casino providers, or is this likely to be an issue that persists through 2025 as well? Sites like Betfree.ie show that new online casinos enter the Irish market pretty much everyday, how will the new regulator deal with these?

The Trouble with Black Market Casinos

Black market casinos are a major problem, not only in Ireland but also in other countries such as the UK and Sweden.

Indeed, black market casinos in Sweden have actually become such a significant problem recently that they have exposed a whole new loophole in Swedish regulations whereby black market, unlicenced casinos are able to serve Swedish bettors provided their sites do not have Swedish content – the primary issue thus arising that Euro payments are possible from multiple different countries across Europe.

Such is potentially also a significant risk for Irish bettors, who could potentially be drawn into black market online casinos offering Euro bets without holding an Irish licence. This is even more of a concern for European nations such as France and Germany, where black market casino operations represent an estimated 45% and 60% of all gambling industry revenue.

In addition, it seems generally that black market casinos have been growing in popularity massively in recent times. Indeed, over just a couple of years, the number of visits to unlicensed casinos in the UK has been found to have jumped by a staggering 500% plus. That’s no small figure and certainly goes to show the scale of the problem of black market casinos in Europe.

Concerns Regarding Irish Black Market Casinos

But what about in Ireland itself? Well, the issue of black market casino use in Ireland is nothing new, and this puts thousands of Irish punters at significant risk every year. Indeed, since unlicensed casinos are unregulated and operate outside of the law, bettors – especially those who may be vulnerable – are prone to significant losses, something that licenced providers are required by law to identify, support, and prevent. Given this, the dangers to Irish betting fans cannot be stressed highly enough.

Perhaps the biggest worry for the Irish industry, though, comes as a result of proposed regulatory changes to the betting industry. Indeed, in an effort to help protect bettors further, the gambling regulator in Ireland proposed changes that would limit the amount a person could stake or win in a single bet. While the principle behind this is sound, in theory preventing people from placing high-value bets that may be less affordable, the reality is far more concerning.

Indeed, key players within the industry have expressed significant concerns about the safety of betting enthusiasts and casino lovers with the proposed changes. Worries are currently prevalent that such a change, rather than protecting punters, would instead encourage them to bet with unlicensed black market casinos that likely wouldn’t impose the same bet restrictions. In turn, far from protecting bettors, such a change could have the potential to push more people to black market casinos – leaving them at significant risk.

What Can Be Done About Black Market Casinos?

While the proposed bet limit change could potentially put punters at risk, there are plenty of steps that the new Irish Gambling regulator could take to try and protect the industry and its participants. As part of this, the new regulator has already rolled out more stringent restrictions and rules for gambling, including tighter limitations on betting adverts.

However, this only goes part way towards preventing problem betting and gambling and tackling the black market casinos themselves represents a key challenge in and of itself. Indeed, as expressed by Barry Gibson, the ex-chairman of Entain (operator of Ladbrokes and Coral), the problem is multi-faceted; thus, it can’t be resolved by just a single change. However, he does recommend a greater focus on implementing geo-fencing to prevent access to third-party countries’ sites and encourage greater collaboration between the gambling regulator, licenced providers, and financial services as a whole.

Given this, the need for greater surveillance and awareness of black market casinos is paramount, and the new gambling regulators no doubt have a huge challenge on their hands to combat the issue. However, the simple truth is that there’s no quick fix for black market casinos, and so, the regulators will have to implement strong new regulations and increase surveillance significantly in order to successfully tackle this massive problem.