Greece’s government has presented legislation to parliament introducing prison sentences of up to ten years and fines of up to €100,000 for operators running unlicensed gambling businesses, as authorities move to dismantle a black market estimated at €1.6 billion annually.
Finance Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis and Deputy Minister Thanos Petralias presented the draft bill to the Greek Cabinet on 26 February 2026. The legislation targets both online platforms and physical venues, including internet cafés that operate as fronts for illicit gambling activity.
Penalty Structure
Under the draft framework, operators running games without a licence face criminal penalties scaled by severity. Running unlicensed gaming operations carries a minimum three-year prison sentence, rising to a maximum of ten years in cases involving games of chance. Fines range from €50,000 to €100,000 for operators. Aggravating circumstances — repeat offences, involvement of minors, or reopening sealed premises — will increase sentences.
The legislation also extends criminal liability to consumers for the first time, a significant policy departure. Repeat participation in illegal gambling will trigger enforcement action against players, with fines between €5,000 and €20,000 and prison terms of up to two years cited in legislative discussions. Pierrakakis framed the consumer liability provision as necessary to dismantle demand-side ecosystems that continue to sustain the black market despite sustained enforcement against operators.
Land-based enforcement powers are sharply expanded. Authorities will gain the ability to immediately seal premises found hosting illegal gambling. Municipalities will be empowered to permanently revoke operating licences connected to illegal play, closing off the tactic of reopening under new business fronts after enforcement action.
Scale of the Problem
Data from the Hellenic Gaming Supervision and Control Board (EEEP) underline the scale of the challenge. In 2024, approximately 799,000 people — around 9.5% of the Greek population — engaged with unlicensed gambling through online platforms, physical venues, or both. Of those, roughly 390,000 used mobile or desktop websites, 215,000 participated in physical venues such as clubs and internet cafés, and 194,000 used both channels.
Illegal turnover reached €1.67 billion in 2024. The Greek state estimates its annual loss in foregone tax revenues at a minimum of €500 million.
“The numbers are shocking. This is not simply a leak of public resources; we are combating a deep social pathology that requires a modern and uncompromising response.”
The demographic profile of illegal gambling participants has sharpened the urgency of reform. The 18-34 age group accounts for more than a quarter of all unlicensed gambling participants, a concentration that Pierrakakis cited as a driver for extending enforcement to the consumer side of the market.
EEEP’s Enforcement Toolkit
The EEEP currently maintains a real-time blacklist of more than 11,000 illegal gambling websites, supported by DNS filtering and cooperation with domestic and international law enforcement. The scale of the challenge is significant: an estimated 10,000 new gambling-related domains are registered globally each month, meaning the regulator faces a continuously replenishing target list. The EEEP is also seeking closer cooperation with Greece’s telecommunications and postal regulator to gain access to domain registries and accelerate the identification of new illegal sites.
The new legislation is designed to give the EEEP expanded investigative authority and faster intervention rights across both digital and physical markets. The regulator launched a dedicated task force in July 2025, working in coordination with Greece’s national police, judiciary, and financial intelligence unit, to dismantle criminal networks ahead of the legislative changes.
The EEEP’s 2026-2030 strategic plan places protection of minors and vulnerable groups as its central objective. A European study cited by the regulator found that one in three 16-year-olds had participated in illegal online gambling, a figure officials said reinforces the case for combining supply-side enforcement with direct deterrence of consumers. This focus aligns with the Dutch regulator’s recent warnings against gambling normalisation as social attitudes toward online betting shift across Europe.
Broader European Context
Greece’s legislative push arrives as European regulators contend more broadly with black market growth driven by online channel proliferation and cross-border operator activity. The Greek framework is being positioned by Athens as a potential reference point for other jurisdictions grappling with the same dynamics, with officials pointing to the UK, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands as markets where illegal market growth has prompted similar regulatory reviews. The UKGC issued £18m in penalties during 2025 as it escalated its own compliance enforcement across licensed operators.
The Greek market, regulated since 2021 under a permanent licensing regime that issued seven-year licences taxed at €3 million each, has a functioning licensed sector. GGR across the regulated market reached €1.24 billion for the January-to-May 2025 period. The scale of the parallel illegal market, running at a comparable figure annually, illustrates the structural enforcement gap the new legislation is designed to close.
The bill is expected to be put to a parliamentary vote in the first half of 2026. Pierrakakis has framed the legislation as a modern regulatory response to a criminal economy that has consistently outpaced existing enforcement tools. Greece’s regulated iGaming market reported 50% growth in its most recent market data, a trajectory the government argues is only sustainable if the illegal sector is structurally dismantled rather than incrementally contained.
Source: Ekathimerini, Athens Times
