Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation announced sanctions totalling about €1.35m in connection with illegal online casino advertising. The available text says the action followed six months of enforcement activity but provides no further details.
The day’s most important stories, free. One email a day.
Spain’s Popular Party parliamentary group has submitted questions to the government about unlicensed online gambling, its economic scale and enforcement. It seeks figures covering the past five years on operators, blocked sites, fines imposed and collected, self-excluded users on illegal platforms, international cooperation and payment blocking.
At a panel during the Lisbon Forum in Portugal, CBF vice-president Michelle Ramalho urged Brazil’s Congress to strengthen penalties for betting platforms operating outside the country’s regulatory framework. She argued that licensed operators should not be associated with match-fixing cases and said they should not have to compete on equal terms with unauthorised platforms.
Brazil’s Federal Court of Accounts approved Judgment 1296/2026 after auditing public-sector controls against money laundering through virtual betting platforms. The ruling directs the Finance Ministry’s Secretariat of Prizes and Bets to establish a permanent inter-agency coordination mechanism and calls on the Central Bank and the secretariat to strengthen sanctions against financial and payment firms that facilitate illegal betting.
Melilla’s director general for Innovation and Technology, Jesús Martínez, criticised the DGOJ and Consumer Ministry’s presentation of gambling sanctions in a social media post, according to the report. He said the announcements did not clearly distinguish licensed operators from unlicensed platforms and called for greater transparency and stronger focus on illegal gambling.
The Netherlands' KSA has not ruled out legal action against Google and Meta over illegal gambling advertising. KSA board chairman Michel Groothuizen discussed efforts against illegal gambling five years after the regulated online market opened.