Greek gov prosecuted 18 influencers for unlicensed gambling promotion

[sergiorus]

I think it's normal for all of the EU.

EU is very rough with everything it considers illegal gambling.

Stake.com is banned there, and when an American sports competition that had stake.com as the main sponsor takes place on the EU's soil (as part of the world tour, for example), they don't show its logo even on their youtube/rumble livestream.

[coin-investor]

Hiring influencers is the only way these illegal casinos can generate new users; they are ready to spend huge amounts for a few minutes of promotion because they understand the pulling power of these influencers.

These influencers rely on the brands they promote for their income, and since these illegal casinos offered double or triple what they received from non-casino brands, they go for it, even if it's illegal to do so.
They are willing to sacrifice their pages to be taken down because of the big money they are receiving.
 

[Cantsay]

I don't think the action of the Greek government is bad, especially rounding up those influencers because they are kind of dumb, it's like this casinos they wants to make hella profit without remitting to the government uses this influencers as pawn to get more users without damage to themselves while the influencers get all the heat. It's their for agreeing with a defaulting platform and they should have researched better before engaging.

In case you don't know, the average influencer doesn't give a damn about their followers, all they care about is the money, so as long as the payment is decent enough, they would gladly accept it and give it to their followers to use.

As bad as 1xbit and 1xbet, there are still influencers out there who are still signing ambassadorship deals with them despite all of the scams that have been reported. Most of them don't even know a thing about the platform that they are representing, they are there for the money.

[Joy- maker]

The problem with these online influencers is that, they don't care about the harm their promotions may cause to the public,  they are only interested in making money for themselves, which is very bad. I don't understand why influencers would knowingly promote unlicensed casinos.  Even if they are unaware of the casino's licensing status,  they should at least do a basic research on the casino before promoting it.

As for the Greek government, I believe they were right to take action against this issue because some online influencers are just heartless, they seem to care more about the money they will  make than the potential harm their promotions could cause to the public.

[uneng]

As for Greece, the ministry stated around 900 thousand people last year alone played in illegal casinos. For a country of 10 million people, that surely is significant.

Is that a problem? I've been playing at unregulated casinos since I was introduced to Bitcoin dice websites. Of course back then there weren't so many people engaged in online gambling, so governments didn't care at all about the potential income they would be losing by not regulating the websites. I'm not against playing at such platforms. It's not because a platform receives a seal or concession by a government that it's superior to every other services of the same category. That is the centralized bullshit governments are trying to impose over every crypto services these days.

[Alphakilo]

I don't really blame unlicenced gambling platforms from going about their business of using influencers to advertise their platform because it might be clear that the cost of obtaining these licenses is quite expensive, they have to also pay taxes and they are definitely going to be regulated by the government and this puts a bracket on their operations of making more money when doing it illegally could get them more money than being compliant with all these requirements before operations.

The influencers may only get to pay fines because they are just doing business while the real casinos they are doing promotions for get to face heavier fines and maybe prison sentence for going against the laws of the land.
I beg to wonder if human influencers are treated in this way, what happens to online platforms that do marketing campaign for these unlicensed platforms, don't they get same punishment too?

[qwertyup23]

It seems as though the Greek government is trying its best to prosecute people profiting from promoting unlicensed gambling. The current government introduced a licensing scheme for casinos and already more than a dozen are operating legally with licenses issued within the country. However, looking to avoid expensive licenses and regulatory procedures many casinos will skip the licensing procedures entirely and just go straight to guerilla promotion with influencers.

This is the consequence whenever a gambling company takes the short road without any regard and respect to the requisites. Expect the government to track down these influencers and the latter cannot complain or raise the defense of innocence given that they are in a position to know.

I've read some news in the past where influencers were also caught in the mess of advertising gambling platforms illegally. They tried to defend themselves claiming ignorance and innocence but such wouldn't work if you are against the government.

The problem with these online influencers is that, they don't care about the harm their promotions may cause to the public,  they are only interested in making money for themselves, which is very bad. I don't understand why influencers would knowingly promote unlicensed casinos.  Even if they are unaware of the casino's licensing status,  they should at least do a basic research on the casino before promoting it.

As for the Greek government, I believe they were right to take action against this issue because some online influencers are just heartless, they seem to care more about the money they will  make than the potential harm their promotions could cause to the public.

I agree with your statements. These influencers should be put more in a higher regard given the amount of "influence" they can spread in the country. Given that they are the ones who advertise these gambling platforms, it is but necessary that they also observe the highest regard of discretion and diligence.

[EluguHcman]

As for Greece, the ministry stated around 900 thousand people last year alone played in illegal casinos. For a country of 10 million people, that surely is significant.

Funny enough the government will take hold on assuming how much profits those casinos operating illegally has acquired all the while they have been existing without licenses to give their penalty judgements over those victims being prosecuted.
It is definitely not going to be a likely judgement as looking at the arithmetic with the number of people in the regions that gambles in the platforms is huge enough up to 10% from a total populations of 10 million of people.

They are really going to pay in the huge price because they did not just violate the legal polices but had been benefitted a lot from the people without the government being part of the beneficiaries.
So definitely the affected companies are going to pay in the hard way which serves as warning for illegal operations to others.

[fredericktaylor]

As for Greece, the ministry stated around 900 thousand people last year alone played in illegal casinos. For a country of 10 million people, that surely is significant.

Sometimes I used to ask this question: how do the government know the number of people who are accessing illegal sites and how much they have spent on those illegal casinos so far, and yet they don’t use that pattern to block their citizens from accessing those places and possibly block payment remitting (crypto deposit excluded)? There might be third-party trackers, but the numbers they give most times appear unbelievable to me, especially when it’s not just talking about the number of gamblers but above 8% of their total population, including children and adults.

I think some of all these statistics may not be accurate because tracking people that are using illegal casinos isn’t that easy. Government can monitor bank transactions and payment patterns but it will be difficult to know the exact number of users and how much they have spend, most especially with crypto. Rather than relying only on estimates, I feel they’re suppose to focus more on getting reliable data and protecting people from harmful gambling.

It is absolutely true that it is never possible for the government to accurately calculate the transactions that will be made using cryptocurrency because it is completely beyond the control of the government. The initiative that the government has taken has been taken for the good of the general public, but it is very difficult for the government to completely control the illegal casinos. The government makes various laws to protect the common people from the destruction of gambling, which will be obliged to follow the rules of legal casinos, but it is completely up to the gambler to gamble with awareness.

[Silverstonez]

The Greek government did nothing wrong by prosecuting those influencers, because most of them care less about the people and are more of a problem than a solution. At least this will serve as a warning to other influencers that they should do a basic research on a casino before promoting it. Funny enough, there are still plenty of them who won’t listen and will still go ahead and promote unlicensed gambling platforms.

[Hispo]

I think it's normal for all of the EU.

EU is very rough with everything it considers illegal gambling.

Stake.com is banned there, and when an American sports competition that had stake.com as the main sponsor takes place on the EU's soil (as part of the world tour, for example), they don't show its logo even on their youtube/rumble livestream.

It is something I would have also expected from the European union. There are pretty much strict in many of their industries, gambling industry is no exception to them.
What catches my attention the most is the percentage of people within Greece who are gambling in illegal services, services which are not regulated within the EU.

I assume those people are simply trying to avoid KYC or trying to take advantage of better odds on betting markets by depositing on unregulated casinos instead of regulated ones.

On the influencers, they are prosecuted in the European union, but they are certainly not prosecuted in third world countries in America and Asia.

[terrific]

I don't think the action of the Greek government is bad, especially rounding up those influencers because they are kind of dumb, it's like this casinos they wants to make hella profit without remitting to the government uses this influencers as pawn to get more users without damage to themselves while the influencers get all the heat, it's their for agreeing with a defaulting platform and they should have researched better before engaging.

It's not bad but commendable.
They are doing it for their people to reduce the number of gambling addicts and at the same time, the number of illegal casinos operating inside them.
This is going to scare the illegal casinos promotion in the country and pushes them to register first.
It's simply telling all of the involved parties from illegal casinos to influencers, to have it register first before promoting it.

[lombok]

It's not bad but commendable.
They are doing it for their people to reduce the number of gambling addicts and at the same time, the number of illegal casinos operating inside them.
This is going to scare the illegal casinos promotion in the country and pushes them to register first.
It's simply telling all of the involved parties from illegal casinos to influencers, to have it register first before promoting it.

The strictness of punishment in regard to those public people who spread information about gambling without any state licenses is highly commendable. The irresponsibility of entering into any kind of business relations without checking their legitimacy shows the tragic irresponsibility of public persons who put the safety of their audience in jeopardy only for earning some money.

This measure to cleanse the digital marketing platforms will work as an instant deterrent to those betting platform providers who act illegally. The safety of the public pocket can be assured only when any sort of illegal marketing is blocked.

[yahoo62278]

These sites surely make enough money to afford a license so why not just get a license and be done with it? Makes no sense to have to play the cat n mouse shit, greedy or not just get a license and be done.

Prosecuting influencers doesn't really hurt the casinos as there are 100 more ready to take the place of the ones who got into trouble.

[Hispo]

These sites surely make enough money to afford a license so why not just get a license and be done with it? Makes no sense to have to play the cat n mouse shit, greedy or not just get a license and be done.

Prosecuting influencers doesn't really hurt the casinos as there are 100 more ready to take the place of the ones who got into trouble.

I think the whole things about not getting a license is about tax evasion, you know?
If they got a license and they started to operate legally, then the administration of those casinos would need to declare their massive profits and pay taxes to the European Union.

They had done their own calculations already, criminals are not as dumb as people think, in the long term they are saving millions of Euros by not paying anything to the European Union and keeping them to themselves, even if they change their name and are constantly running away from justice.

In the end, it is all about millions of euros, it is all about money.

[Darker45]

The Greek government is taking the right measure. They should prosecute, seriously at that, locals for being involved in promoting illegal gambling. It's hard to fight offshore online casinos, though.

But, on top of strict monitoring and immediate bans, the government should unequivocally show to the public that anybody within the country who's proven to be benefitting from these illegal operations will receive the harshest punishment under the law.

Out of 10 million people, if half of it gamble, and around 900,000 are playing in illegal casinos, that's almost 20% of the entire gambling population. The government must be losing big to these operators.

[Cointxz]

It's not bad but commendable.
They are doing it for their people to reduce the number of gambling addicts and at the same time, the number of illegal casinos operating inside them.
This is going to scare the illegal casinos promotion in the country and pushes them to register first.
It's simply telling all of the involved parties from illegal casinos to influencers, to have it register first before promoting it.

I doubt their main purpose is to reduce gambling addiction since they are only targeting “unlicensed casino” so this means that their main goal is to make every casino regulated and pay for taxes and license to operate or else they should completely prosecuted any forms of gambling promotion.

What’s intriguing is why the heck these influencers still risk to promote unlicensed casino if they have law against it while there’s also license casino as viable option to be promoted.

This is same situation in my country that unlicensed casino paying huge commission and upfront payment to influencers to promote them.

[alani123]

It seems as though the Greek government is trying its best to prosecute people profiting from promoting unlicensed gambling.

This is the type of trap journalists set up against people, organizations, and the government.

In this first sentence. The statement should be "it seems as though the Greek government is trying its best to prosecute people promoting unlicensed gambling". Instead, you decide to add profiting to make the government look bad. As if the government is stopping people from making money through their influence. From the article I read, the Greek government is interested in all influencers promoting unlicensed gambling, whether they are profiting from it or not.

Whattttt 

It's amazing how reading my post your mind got so stuck in the word profit.
When you promote a referral to a casino is it for charity or for profit?
Just consider, the revenue on referral deals comes from Pepe losing money in the casino. It certainly isn't a mutually beneficial transaction.

Nothing of what I said here is making the government look bad, I really have zero idea how you jumped to that conclusion just because I said people who promote illegal casinos do it for profit.

[Outhue]

It seems as though the Greek government is trying its best to prosecute people profiting from promoting unlicensed gambling. The current government introduced a licensing scheme for casinos and already more than a dozen are operating legally with licenses issued within the country. However, looking to avoid expensive licenses and regulatory procedures many casinos will skip the licensing procedures entirely and just go straight to guerilla promotion with influencers.

These casinos change their domains every day or so to avoid blocks playing cat and mouse games with the government. Perhaps the owners of these casinos were registering the legal entities abroad and maybe even they themselves were abroad. As per the soft2bet scandal many of Europe's illegal casinos had their true beneficiary behind them in Israel!

As for Greece, the ministry stated around 900 thousand people last year alone played in illegal casinos. For a country of 10 million people, that surely is significant.

Source in Greek: https://www.megatv.com/2026/10/07/minyseis-se-18-influencers-gia-proothisi-paranomou-tzogou/

Source in English:
https://europeangaming.eu/portal/latest-news/2026/10/08/215644/greece-18-influencers-criminal-complaints-illegal-gambling/

I'm not supposed to be sorry for them because they must have been warned already, what I don't understand is why they choose to promote illegal casinos when they can do the same with legal casinos and make that same amount of money, or is illegal casinos paying more money to these promoters?

Once your country's law forbidden something like casinos just go for the licenced casinos to avoid arrests and charges like this especially countries that takes things like this very seriously, I bet they know what would happen but they thought they would get away with it.

[Tongley]

I don't think the action of the Greek government is bad, especially rounding up those influencers because they are kind of dumb, it's like this casinos they wants to make hella profit without remitting to the government uses this influencers as pawn to get more users without damage to themselves while the influencers get all the heat. It's their for agreeing with a defaulting platform and they should have researched better before engaging.

In case you don't know, the average influencer doesn't give a damn about their followers, all they care about is the money, so as long as the payment is decent enough, they would gladly accept it and give it to their followers to use.

As bad as 1xbit and 1xbet, there are still influencers out there who are still signing ambassadorship deals with them despite all of the scams that have been reported. Most of them don't even know a thing about the platform that they are representing, they are there for the money.

Yes you are right and I completely agree with you. A few days ago I was watching a video in which gambling was being promoted and the video I was watching was mainly watched by young children. The person who was promoting this did not think about the young children for a single moment. The future of these young children can be ruined and they can become addicted to gambling. I think such people need to be punished severely.

The future of a country is its young children, if these children are introduced to this type of gambling now, then surely the future of these children will be blinded and we will not be able to see the progress of the country in the future.