Latest Gambling News: Telegram Averts Philippines Ban, Targets Gambling Content, and more

Catch up on some of the stories our gambling compliance analysts have covered lately, and stay up-to-date on the latest news.

Telegram Averts Philippines Ban, Targets Gambling Content

A Philippine government threat to ban Telegram over illegal gambling advertising has secured an agreement from the social media and instant messaging service to crack down on gambling content.

The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) on Friday (February 27) said via a Facebook post that Telegram has agreed to a series of measures to block gambling advertising and pornographic content.

The measures include a 24-hour help desk for users to report illegal material, a monthly report to be delivered to the DICT and the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center detailing intervention against illegal content, and a “zero tolerance policy” on online gambling, sexual exploitation, financial scams and other illegal material.

The statement said the government reached the deal with Telegram bosses Ronak Singh and Abhimanyu Yadav, and follows a threat by DICT secretary Henry Aguda on Tuesday to lock Telegram out of the Philippine market after failing to set up a line of communication with the company.

The agreement follows DICT meetings and agreements with social media and instant messaging giants Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp relating to the restriction of gambling content.

The Philippines is undergoing a substantial and punitive shift in regulation of online gambling operators, gambling-related payments channels and advertising spaces, along with heightened monitoring of licensee fundamentals including revenue, tax requirements and staff suitability.

Gambling Commission Cites Workload In Floated Licence Fee Hike

Britain’s Gambling Commission has explained its case for higher licence fees, warning that its current funding model no longer reflects the scale or complexity of modern gambling regulation.

Speaking at the Betting and Gaming Council’s annual general meeting on Thursday (February 26), Gambling Commission executive director of research and policy Tim Miller said it has been five years since the regulator’s fees were last reviewed, a period in which its responsibilities have “increased considerably” across licensing, compliance and enforcement.

Miller acknowledged that the timing of the fees consultation, which was launched by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) last month, would be unwelcome to operators as the industry also faces a tax increase as a result of the autumn budget and the introduction of a statutory levy.

However, he argued that the increase is necessary to sustain existing levels of regulatory activity.

In particular, Miller pointed to increasingly complex corporate structures within the industry, which have made assessments such as corporate control more resource-intensive. In many cases, he said, the work required is not fully covered by application fees, leaving general licence fee income to subsidise those processes.

Without the power to set its own fees, the commission cannot make fee structures more predictable for the industry, he added.

Under the current proposal, total Gambling Commission income from licence fees, excluding the National Lottery, would rise from around 0.21 percent of gross gambling yield to approximately 0.28 percent. Miller stressed that the increase would allow the regulator to maintain core functions while expanding efforts to tackle illegal gambling.

While the UK Treasury has committed £26m over the next three years beginning in April to support enforcement against the black market, Miller noted that this funding is limited to that area and that all other regulatory activity remains dependent on licence fees.

The DCMS consultation closes on March 29, with Miller urging operators to engage. He warned that the commission has already started making contingency plans to scale back or pause certain activities should the proposed increase fail to materialise.

Slovakia Regulator Wants To Educate ‘Gen Z’ Players On Gambling Risks

Slovakia's Gambling Regulatory Authority expects online gambling to continue to grow nationally as a "natural consequence" of advances in technology, the ubiquity of smartphones and almost unlimited internet access.

At the same time, the authority is seeking to ensure player protection, eliminate illegal gambling and provide for the stable development of Slovakia's licensed market.

Libuša Baranová, director general of the regulator, said: "We are growing up with Generation Z, our digital youth, who consider social networks and the online world to be their natural environment".

That meant one of the authority's key priorities was to educate younger people about the risks associated with gambling, as well as building their critical thinking and awareness of what a responsible approach to gambling involved.

To drive this, Slovakia will continue to focus on building a modern regulatory framework. In a closely related development, the regulator  became the main supervisory authority for gambling-related consumer protection in January 2026, in what Baranová called a significant development.

Sharing statistical data on the market, the regulator reported that online casinos continued to grow year-on-year. In 2025 the vertical accounted for 36.6 percent of total gambling revenue, a rise from 32.8 per cent in 2024 and 21.6 percent in 2021 during the pandemic. The 2025 revenue from online gambling was €586.8m, of which €151.1m went to the state budget.

Last year also saw online casinos eclipse land-based casinos for the first time in terms of revenue, even despite a year-on-year increase of €40.7m in the latter's revenue between 2024 and 2025. Sports betting saw an annual increase in terms of revenue and numerical lotteries recorded increases in bets, winnings and proceeds.

France’s ANJ Warns About ‘Addictive Characteristics’ Of Prediction Markets

The French regulator, the National Gaming Authority (ANJ), has issued a warning about the “addictive characteristics” of prediction markets that are exacerbated by the lack of player protection, betting limits and know your customer checks.

The ANJ also said prediction markets posed a risk of market sentiment and public opinion being manipulated in a harmful way by people at the centre of an event betting on a specific outcome, including cheating in sports events and inciting political violence.

The regulator ruled in November 2024 that Polymarket’s services were “likely to be considered unauthorised gambling”. After being contacted by the ANJ, Polymarket put a geoblocking system in place that prohibited France-based gamblers accessing the platform, other than via a VPN, a restriction Kalshi also later put in place.

The February 24 notice said prediction markets aimed to attract people who had not played casino games and used sports betting, but who instead regarded them as a form of investment. This brought with it an “illusion of competence” that induced people to play more in the belief they could make easy gains, like from cryptogaming.

In the ANJ’s view, prediction markets combine the characteristics of a betting platform and a specialised financial product with a position that could be resold before the underlying event was concluded.

In contrast, the French regulator noted that Germany, Belgium, Romania, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Poland, Greece, Cyprus, Ukraine and Portugal had blocked access to Polymarket because they believed the platform offered gambling services without the required licence.

Google, Mastercard Among Companies Assisting With UK’s Illegal Gambling Taskforce

UK Gambling Minister Baroness Twycross has revealed further details of the Illegal Gambling Taskforce, first announced last month.

The taskforce is made up of a number of major companies, including technology giant Google, payment processing networks Mastercard and Visa and the social media platform TikTok, as well as law enforcement and gambling bodies, to tackle the issue of illegal gambling.

The aims of the taskforce were also outlined by the government and will be concentrated in three key areas: preventing illegal operators from advertising on social media platforms, preventing payments to these sites and improving cross-agency collaboration.

It was stated that the work of the new taskforce is distinct from a new government consultation set to launch in the spring that will focus on sports sponsorships and,more specifically, on how to crack down on the number of illegal operators that are currently sponsoring British sports teams, including Premier League clubs.

The new consultation will look to mitigate the risks associated with the illegal market and help eliminate unfair competition for properly regulated companies.

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