Both Denmark’s regulator and EGBA’s Director General say the fight against illegal gambling now runs through Meta, Google and the payment firms.
Anders Dorph, head of Denmark’s gambing regulator, Spillemyndigheden, does not flatter his own numbers. Ever since Denmark opened its online gambling market in 2012, it has been held up as proof that a well-designed licensing regime can starve the black market. However, at a SiGMA panel on Thursday, Dorph disowned the figure that made the case. “The number we’ve been bragging about for so many years, a 93% channelisation rate, isn’t really true any longer,” he said.
Better measurement is a part of the explanation, he said, but regardless, Denmark certainly is not immune to a drift to the illegal market either. Once H2 Gambling Capital, a consultancy, began counting crypto casinos and affiliate traffic some 18 months ago, its estimate of the share of Danish gambling captured by licensed firms fell to 78%. The regulator’s own web-traffic measure says 82%. Only 6-7% of Danish gamblers use illegal sites, a recent survey by Spillemyndigheden found, “But they are heavy players. We have to wake up and do something serious about it,” Dorph said.