The Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) issued €162,520 in administrative fines in 2025, almost half the €306,250 it handed out the year before. The regulator’s newly published annual report shows enforcement activity fell across the board even as the number of licensed operators kept growing.
The MGA issued 30 administrative penalties during the year, cancelled just two licences, and sent 22 formal warnings. In 2024 those figures stood at 35 warnings and eight licence cancellations. The drop in licence cancellations was the sharpest change in the report, a fall of six from the previous year.
Applications keep climbing
Demand for the Maltese licence did not slow down. The MGA received 38 new licence applications in 2025, up from 28 in 2024, and issued 19 licences against 17 the year before. Eight licences were renewed after the regulator processed 10 renewal requests.
MGA CEO Charles Mizzi described the lighter enforcement numbers as a change in method, not a change in scrutiny.
“The challenge facing regulators today is not to regulate more, but to regulate better. Throughout 2025, we refined the way we regulate: strengthening our risk-based approach to oversight, improving engagement, streamlining processes and making better use of data and technology to focus our efforts where they matter most. That is how we strengthen confidence in the Maltese licence, safeguard players and support the long-term sustainability of Malta’s gaming sector,” said Mizzi.
The MGA has built one of Europe’s largest iGaming licensing hubs over two decades, and the 2025 figures suggest the authority is leaning on risk-based supervision as licensee numbers grow.
Casino products widen their lead
The report also tracks a shift inside Malta’s licensed online market. Type 1 games, casino products, generated 78.9% of total gaming revenue among B2C (business-to-consumer) online licensees in 2025, up nine percentage points on the previous year.
Type 2 gaming, sports betting, fell to 14.5% of that revenue, down from 25.6% in 2024. The MGA attributed the decline to regulatory changes in overseas markets and the rollout of new licensing models outside Malta. Type 3 gaming, pool betting, grew its share from 4.6% to 6.6%, though it remains the smallest of the three segments.
Integrity and compliance work
Licensees submitted 280 suspicious betting alerts to the MGA during the year. After its own review, the regulator circulated 192 of those alerts back to licensees to help flag potentially irregular activity across the market.
The MGA completed 15 full-scope compliance audits, which assess a licensee’s adherence to technical, financial and player-protection obligations under the Gaming Act, and processed 3,718 requests for regulatory assistance. It also reviewed 109 websites suspected of misusing the MGA’s identity or that of licensed operators, finding fraudulent references on 42 of them.
Land-based inspections stay high
Away from online gambling, the MGA carried out 7,903 inspections covering casinos, bingo halls, National Lottery outlets, controlled gaming premises and non-profit tombola events. It also approved 2,043 non-profit tombola permits, 22 non-profit lottery permits and 118 certificates for commercial communication games.
The lighter enforcement total comes as Malta prepares a broader overhaul of its gambling VAT and gaming tax rules from October 2026, a change that will test whether the MGA’s risk-based approach holds once operators face a new fiscal framework. The regulator’s own systems came under scrutiny earlier this year when a German researcher claimed to have breached them, a reminder that its supervisory workload extends well beyond fines and licence counts. How the MGA balances that wider mandate against a lighter enforcement footprint will shape how the market reads Malta’s licence through 2026.
Source: Malta Gaming Authority
