Speaking at the SBC Summit in Lisbon, PAF Director Jesper Eliasson outlined the company’s new experimental approach to combating illegal gambling.
The issue of the growing black market was one of the prominent topics discussed at the event. The expansion of the illegal sector is being driven, among other factors, by increasing tax burdens and tighter regulation of the legal market.
At the same time, social media platforms are becoming one of the key channels through which players gain access to illegal operators, contributing to the growth of their audience.
Speaking during a panel focused on Scandinavia, Eliasson revealed that PAF is engaged in an experimental collaboration with Meta aimed at tackling the spread of unlicensed gambling.
As part of the partnership, PAF will share certain information with Meta, including licences and URLs. This is expected to help the platform more accurately identify which operators and affiliates are operating legally and which do not have the required authorisations.
According to Eliasson, the two sides intend to work together to combat the distribution of advertising and marketing materials linked to the illegal market and limit the further expansion of unlicensed operators.
Eliasson stressed the need for closer cooperation across the industry to tackle the black market. He also expressed hope that the experimental project in Switzerland could eventually be expanded to other markets and potentially serve as a model for similar initiatives across Europe.
If the collaboration with Meta proves successful, it could mark an important development for the gambling industry as a whole. However, earlier the same day, Summit participants discussed the ongoing challenges facing the industry in its dealings with the social media platform.
VNLOK Chair Bjorn Fuchs described the KSA’s published 90% rate for the share of players using legal platforms as “a lullaby that we shouldn’t believe”, warning that the black market continues to actively target vulnerable groups.
According to Fuchs, VNLOK has spent five years trying to persuade Meta to take action, but the organisation received nothing more than automated responses. He said the platform’s lack of response was one of the reasons VNLOK decided to file a lawsuit against the technology company.
“One could say that dialogue and cooperation are effective in the long term, but after five years we don’t see any improvement and the advertisements are getting worse,” Fuchs said while speaking at the SBC Summit in Lisbon. “That’s why we took the step to go to court and ask the Dutch judge to look at the matter.”
In the UK, the fight against the black market has intensified, but according to industry representatives, the issue is still not receiving sufficient attention from policymakers.
Earlier on the same stage, Richard Clarke, Managing Director at Paddy Power Betfair, expressed hope for change. He revealed that representatives of the company had previously met with former Gambling Minister Baroness Twycross to discuss the black market issue.
“We need to focus on the black market. We spent some time with the Gambling Minister recently, showing some of the work that we’ve done on analysis around the black market and around the actual consumer experience of being a black market customer is horrific.
“I don’t think people actually always can see what that looks like. So educating in that space is really important, but I think we really need to start taking action.”
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