EGBA: Italians Spend €25 Billion a Year on Illegal Gambling

The European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA) says that Italians are spending a staggering €25 billion (about $26.38 billion) a year on illegal casinos and bookmakers.

Most of this money (€18.5 billion or $19.59 billion) goes to unlicensed online gambling services, which make up about 75% of all the shady gambling activities.

The EGBA estimates that the gross gaming revenue (GGR*) from Italy’s black market is around €1 billion ($1.06 billion). That’s as much as the legal gambling companies in Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, and Slovenia make together.

Italian authorities have blocked over 9,800 websites of illegal platforms this year alone, but the problem is still huge. The EGBA thinks that one of the reasons is the total ban on gambling advertising in Italy. This means that gamblers don’t know which operators are legit and which ones are not.

*GGR is a financial metric used to measure gross earnings, calculated by subtracting total winnings from total bets.