Betsson counsel warns Rome summit restrictions may benefit offshore operators
Regulation2 min read
In brief
- He addressed the risk that restrictive online gambling policies favour offshore operators.
- The panel discussed how restrictions affect demand, competition and player protection.
Dario Evangelista, Deputy General Counsel of Betsson Group, spoke at the SiGMA Central Europe Summit in Rome on 3 November 2026. One of the themes he addressed was that restrictive policies on online gambling risk working against authorities' own aims by indirectly favouring offshore operators. He also pointed to a resulting difficulty in steering consumers towards the regulated offer.
He spoke on a panel titled "Regulatory Backfire: How Crackdowns Empower Offshore Rivals". The session dealt with the effects of regulatory restrictions on competition and on player protection. The central question, according to the report, is how effective restrictive measures are. New constraints on regulated operators do not necessarily bring a matching fall in demand for gambling. The risk is that some users keep seeking the same products through alternative channels, where national authorities have more limited means of control.
Evangelista also addressed the role of the digital ecosystem and the responsibilities of those who contribute to the visibility and accessibility of online offers. The areas named include search engines and digital platforms. The discussion also covered the need to distinguish between regulatory situations. An operator's presence in an international market, its licences in other jurisdictions and its ability to offer services lawfully in a given country each call for specific assessment. The report said this matters for consumer protection because the obligations and protection tools in licensing systems can vary between jurisdictions.
According to the report, the panel treated user protection as one of the fundamental objectives of regulation. It said that restrictions alone are not enough and that their concrete effects on player behaviour and on the split of demand between the authorised market and external offers must be assessed. The risk discussed was that a particularly restrictive application of the rules would mainly affect companies inside the regulated system, without equivalent effects on offshore competitors.