Notes from the floor
Honest, unfiltered thinking on iGaming - platform selection, CRM, compliance, African markets, offline-to-online, governance. From someone who's been in your chair.
Greece Counted 799,000 Citizens in the Black Market. The Bill Answers With Takedown Powers.
Greece's EEEP draft gives the regulator police-style website takedown authority. The numbers behind it are real: 9.5% of the population gambled on an unlicensed site at least once. The bill is precise about removing supply and silent about why 799,000 people generated the demand.
Austria Isn't Opening Its Market. It's Sending You a Bill.
Austria's draft online gambling law opens casino licensing past the Win2day monopoly — but requires every applicant to settle outstanding Austrian court judgments and pay retroactive tax. The deregulation reading is wrong.
Norway: A Different Theory of Problem Gambling
Norway published a four-year problem gambling action plan. No changes to legal access. No new betting limits. No advertising bans. That is a specific policy philosophy.
UK RGD Doubles. The Tax Picks Winners.
April 1. The UK doubled its Remote Gaming Duty from 21% to 40%. Flutter's UK CEO said it on the record: 'We'll take share from those who can't absorb it.' Read that sentence again.
Seven Markets, Seven Directions. The Balkan Gaming Federation.
Seven Balkan countries signed a Memorandum of Cooperation. The agenda: fight illegal gambling, align best practices. Each is also running its own regulatory experiment in a different direction.
Romania Consolidation: CEE's First Domino
Super Technologies acquires MaxBet Romania. The headline reads like a single transaction. It isn't. It's a phase change.
Sweden's Credit Card Ban Is a Compliance Event. It's Also a Product Event.
Most operators treated the Swedish credit card ban as a compliance milestone. What it actually is: a backend infrastructure test, and a CRM model drift event most won't notice until Q3.
The Channelization Paradox
Germany has 11 illegal operators for every licensed one. Channelization is a product design problem at the regulatory level - not a policing problem.
The Concession Trilogy
OPAP builds. Danske Spil optimizes. The third model extracts. Same structural advantage, three outcomes.
Germany: 77% or 50%? The Number Nobody Disputes Is 17%.
Two numbers are circulating about Germany's online gambling market. The regulator says 77% channelization. The operators' association and the University of Leipzig say 50%. The black market grew 17% anyway.
The First Operator Has Entered Finland. Who's Next?
Finland will have 40 to 50 licensed operators. The number who were actually ready will be smaller. We'll find out in 2028.