Greek gov prosecuted 18 influencers for unlicensed gambling promotion

[DrBeer]

1. By helping a criminal (in this case, one who is breaking Greek law), you become an accomplice. I don’t think these bloggers didn’t realize that these were "gray-market sites". And every crime must be followed by punishment.
2. The number of players at illegal casinos in Greece is certainly shocking...
 

[terrific]

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.

It's pure about money.
These influencers doesn't have anything to take on them but easy money by promoting the illegal casinos.
More work for the government of Greece so that influencers will be responsible on what they're endorsing to the people as it's accompanied by huge responsibility with the reach of audience they have.

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.

I concur, it's a matter of licensing and paying taxes. Because if they're earning from the Greek citizens and the government doesn't get anything, they'll be taken down.
And so they're sending them a message to get a permit, be taxable and they're good to go.

[UpTober]

This situation in Greece is absolutely mind boggling. I’m not sure if it’s entirely right for government’s regulatory body EEEP to file criminal complaint against those 18 influencer and streamer. But 900000 people that’s almost 10% of country's population involved in illegal game! This is no small matter. It’s on massive scale. And often, it is these social media promoter who lead  general public astray.

Gambling by ordinary people and publicizing those gambling activities on social media is one thing, and influencers promoting gambling is another. Each influencer has thousands of followers, and gambling companies offer their services to influencers who have more followers and more views on their videos. So it is natural for the government to take action against the few people against whom such allegations have been made because their campaigns are reaching millions of followers.

[mak013]

Right decision. If you have legal casinos, you ought to protect them. Bloggers knew about it, but greed comes first.
I think this is the first step to show other bloggers that they should avoid such proposals. I’m not sure it will stop unlicensed gambling, but at least it will reduce its promotion.

P.S. Of course, that’s assuming they don’t catch innocent bloggers.

[Tungbulu]

Influencers should have their own criteria for a brand to meet up with before promoting the company's brand because there are a lot of illegal businesses out there that can put any influencer behind bars if he's caught up by the law. Influencers shouldn't say because they're looking for money and not do it in a wise way because they will face the consequences of their actions all alone while, the casino owner will bail himself out by paying a fine. I don't like anything illegal.

Only that not all influencers are discreet about which products or service they choose to advertise or promote, for them, as long as they’re paying good money, they don’t mind promoting them. In fact some people may even know that a particular brand have a questionable reputation and have been involved in some scam accusations and they still go ahead to promote them as long as they’re been paid a reasonable amount.

[Y3shot]

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.

I think the people are not even the problem; the government should go after casinos that have no license. If this is done, there won't be people promoting unlicensed gambling sites, because influencers will even put their focus on promoting licensed casinos.

The government is not fighting the good fight because this won't stop unlicensed gambling sites from existing. It is better for them to focus on the source, and this will help them get good results.

[Mrbluntzy]

What do you mean by prosecuted, you mean kill these influencers for promoting unlicensed casinos in Greece? I need to understand you with the choice of word you used to describe this news my friend.

No, that is not what it/he meant, in this case, a lawsuits has been filed against these 18 influencers, legal case started <> prosecute, not "execute" Which is what I guess you thought he mentioned.

These influencers were exploiting their great reach on social media, which for some exceeds 3.6 million followers, earning fees of 3,000 to 5,000 euros for each publication.

The promotion method they used was based on deception, as they did not do formal advertising, but rather uploaded stories with supposedly personal experiences of easy enrichment to lure their audience, leading them to unlicensed platforms and illegal websites.

Emphasis is usually on the kind of promotion methods that influencers are using these days to mislead their followers and the gullible individuals that might just be innocently scrolling online and stumbled upon the deceitful promotion. It is so common among influencers nowadays, not just in Greek but even in my country and other countries, the influencers are promoting even non reputable companies and they don't care whether their followers gets scammed or not, most of those influencers don't have integrity at all, 5k euros is more important than anything else.

[SuperBitMan]

All these influencers do not care about people, all they care about is the money that they will get from anything they promote, if they really care about people they will be very careful not to advertise things that may cause harm to the people.
Influencers has advertised drugs that has killed people, they have advertised cryptocurrencies that they know is a scam, they do all this because of the money.

But the influencers were just advertising what they were paid to advertise, I believe every work have his own responsibilities which their work was to make the casino popular, i don't know if the constitution of Greek allow such things as influencing but if it is allowed, then I believe they did wrong by sentencing those influencers and might have even stepped on their rights. Even is it happened that they broke the law, their punishment shouldn't have been severe as death by hanging, but a punishment like sentencing them to some years imprisonment.

Let's take for example a lawyer that stands for a murderer in a murder case, will such lawyer been have said did the wrong thing? It's his work and so he did what he had to do and might even win the case, if such cases of a lawyer can't be sentenced and punished then this also shouldn't be an exception.

Look let me tell you, some of all these influencers, they know that what they are advertising is actually going to scam or harm the people or the citizens, but because they are just interested in getting paid they won’t mind advertising it to the people.

As an influencer that is advertising things to people, you need to know if what you are advertising is actually real or a good thing to advertise to people. The reason why you need to know is because the people will accept the advert because you are telling them that what you advertising is good for them to use so you should be ready to take the responsibility of what comes after the advert.
You can’t compare influencers to lawyers because they do different jobs, and the law supports lawyers.
Lawyers defend people but influencers tell people to use a particular product that it’s trustworthy and confirmed as legit.

[shinratensei_]

Is there something about unlicensed casinos that we don't know? I mean why can't these influencers focus their attention on cassios that are legit? I'm sure they will be paid even better.

I've seen some cases the influencers who promoted the illegal gambling platforms are small influencers. Theoretically, a gambling site that can afford to get license has good reputation. So they don't randomly hire influencers who have low impressions to promote their platform.
In this case, i'm question how big the influencers who get prosecuted by Greece's regulators due to promoting the illegal site. It's gonna be a disaster if those are small influencers with not a lot of followers.

Beside that the small influencers would be accepting any offer that comes to them because they have no legit offer by a reputable and legal gambling platform due to the low followers, small impressions and lack of popularity.
But i still agree they to get punishment to ensure they won't accept promotion from the site that can lead their followers to be scammed.

[sompitonov]

I've seen some cases the influencers who promoted the illegal gambling platforms are small influencers. Theoretically, a gambling site that can afford to get license has good reputation. So they don't randomly hire influencers who have low impressions to promote their platform.
In this case, i'm question how big the influencers who get prosecuted by Greece's regulators due to promoting the illegal site. It's gonna be a disaster if those are small influencers with not a lot of followers.

Beside that the small influencers would be accepting any offer that comes to them because they have no legit offer by a reputable and legal gambling platform due to the low followers, small impressions and lack of popularity.
But i still agree they to get punishment to ensure they won't accept promotion from the site that can lead their followers to be scammed.

Bloggers constantly face the dilemma of what to advertise naturally, there may come a point when they want to earn more money and agree to promote a casino. However, many subscribers today recognize this and might instantly unfollow them, realizing the blogger is driven by profit rather than a genuine vision or a commitment to creating content for the audience they worked so hard to build. That said, I also understand that many bloggers have a strict policy against casino advertising it is encouraging to see that not everyone is willing to promote such things, as they grasp the responsibility or at least part of it involved.

[Webutxo]

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.

I would have to agree with you on this. We have many miserable influencers here that share promo code with their names and they don't even bet. They do comedy skits, do football analysis, they create YouTube contents but they promote anything that brings food to the table. I have nothing against it but the way some of them promote some of these companies does not feel alright. I know an influencers that has promoted a particular company that turned to scam this year.

There is an ongoing investigation about an agency some influencers promoted. They claimed they are into traveling processing and visa, they did that for many years, promised to run papers legally for travelers. Once you make payments to them, they don't fulfill their promises. This was going on for 3 years before they finally caught them. The influencers were coming to beg the public that they ever knew it was a scam. Can you imagine.

[Odusko]

Not only Greek government, but other countries are also taking actions against whatever form of unlicensed operations most especially something like gambling which have alot of negative impact on the citizens if not properly managed and monitored; at least the government created a window to accommodate casinos, most especially the recent approvals of some online cryptocurrency casino licenses within that region.
Here in my country, there were a lot of arrests and closures of physical casinos, even those that were licensed but failed to meet their taxes.

[I_Anime]

This situation in Greece is absolutely mind boggling. I’m not sure if it’s entirely right for government’s regulatory body EEEP to file criminal complaint against those 18 influencer and streamer. But 900000 people that’s almost 10% of country's population involved in illegal game! This is no small matter. It’s on massive scale. And often, it is these social media promoter who lead  general public astray.

They don’t really care what happens to the public, what they care about is the amount they are going to make from promoting those casinos. This is same thing may folks are going through in social media like X . Influencers promoting fake project just to receive some kind of commissions from that same project, the same time messing with a lot of folks lives . It’s good to see the Greek government taking action against such practices. Influencers should be held accountable for what they promote.

[Bitcoin Smith]

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/

These kind of casinos are operated by money-laundering mafias, and they are not licensed anywhere, you may see they are licensed here but when we check out the authenticity, then mostly it will be operating from nowhere. In India also these kind of platforms are still operating but online gambling is completely prohibited, they promote it as educational/learning based games, I don't know what they will learn from playing those games.

And they use social media influencers, mainly from Instagram, because youtube is kind of strict when it comes to enforcing the standard laws of each country.

[hedgeh0g]

Not only Greek government, but other countries are also taking actions against whatever form of unlicensed operations most especially something like gambling which have alot of negative impact on the citizens if not properly managed and monitored; at least the government created a window to accommodate casinos, most especially the recent approvals of some online cryptocurrency casino licenses within that region.
Here in my country, there were a lot of arrests and closures of physical casinos, even those that were licensed but failed to meet their taxes.

I believe there should be limits on advertising when I see too much of it, it feels wrong almost as if I stop noticing anything else around me. Furthermore, any mention of a casino can trigger a reaction in the brain of someone struggling with addiction, easily causing them to relapse and place another bet. Such players already have a hard enough time; they are like tightrope walkers, hoping a gust of wind won't blow them back into the abyss of debt. Ultimately, bloggers should be held accountable if they are not permitted to advertise such things.

[Iranus]

I think the people are not even the problem; the government should go after casinos that have no license. If this is done, there won't be people promoting unlicensed gambling sites, because influencers will even put their focus on promoting licensed casinos.

I agree that taking action against operator is essential. However it wouldn't be right to completely absolve influencer of responsibility either. Casino operator are source. Influencers act as their customer acquisition channel.

An operator can repeatedly change domain from offshore location. But influencer targeting local audience remain easiest way to reach new player. That said, you are right if authority only target influencer then operator will simply find other promoter. Conversely, if action is taken against operator while ignoring their promoter then distribution channel remain open. However, there should be concrete evidence against someone before they are penalized. Merely mentioning an unlicensed platform does not constitute proof of paid promotion.

[Powerjumboo]

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.

This is not just your question, it is also a question that always arises in my mind because when I run a casino with great secrecy, how will the government find me there? I sometimes ask myself this question. But again, I always think that if the government of a country wants, then everything is possible because when something is run from a country, of course the government's administration may be a sign through their location tracker.

[qurbanshah02]

This is a good thing done by the government because in our country too some YouTuber was caught for promoting gambling but in our country there was no talk of license and unlicensed where promoting gambling is illegal. Influencers are very hungry these days they don't see whether the thing they are promoting is legit or not they take money from them and promote it but some good influencers don't misuse it like this they give good things to their viewers so that they can earn money on the right way. In this way promoting unlicensed gambling is not promotion on social media because the government will take immediate action if you have found a gambling den which doesn't have a license then that person will not suffer any loss. The government is very strict in the matter of gambling now these 18 people will also be questioned very hard it is not expected and other influencers should not promote such things.

[SFR10]

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.

You have a point, but since we're talking about illegal casinos, I highly doubt that figure ^{[e.g., I don't think they can accurately count unique users on such platforms, so I'd take it with a grain of salt]}.
^{- FWIW, it's nice to see the Greek government actually taking action against such influencers (in my country, the government only pretends to do so).}

[Rabata]

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.

If the Greek government does not take a strong decision on this issue soon, such propaganda will increase further, resulting in an increase in the number of illegal gambling sites in the country. The government gets proper revenue from gambling sites, but if the influence of illegal casinos continues to increase, then the legal casinos will lose money, which is also a loss for the government. Those who are bloggers, for their own small profit, they promote illegal casinos, which is definitely a punishable crime. I think such a decision of the government is logical. Due to such steps, those who want to do criminal activities will also get proper lesson and will refrain themselves from such activities.

It is also harmful for bloggers to promote that casino. In many cases, it is seen that an established blogger gets banned from his long-established platform due to a mistake or greed. I think bloggers should definitely refrain from promoting any casino due to greed.