Opening the Workshop, WLA Executive Director, Luca Esposito, emphasized the important work of the regulated lottery and sports betting industry which raises funds for good causes, adding that massive amounts are lost through illegal gambling operations each year.
“This is a one-of-a-kind, top-down project to size the illegal market, which is very important for our industry, and the greater effort to tackle illegal gambling worldwide.”
Marking the transition from preliminary findings to institutional validation, the Workshop was held to discuss the Report findings on the robustness and relevance of the methodology, and to assess scalability, the potential replication across jurisdictions, and next steps.
For years, illegal gambling operations have continued at a significant scale, diverting revenues that should be flowing to public finances, good causes, and to the licensed operators who play by the rules and invest in consumer protection. However, estimates of the global illegal gambling markets have been inconsistent, difficult to verify, and often politically contested.
Stefano Caneppele, Professor, at the School of Criminology, UNIL, who led the work, presented the outcomes.
“The goal of the Project was to build a rigorous, transparent, and reproducible methodology for estimating the size of illegal online gambling markets – across jurisdictions, over time, and in a way that genuinely holds up to scrutiny.”
Caneppele elaborated on the aim to ensure something usable for regulators, such as the possibility to produce a yearly estimate, from different countries using the same methodology, in order to be able to make comparisons, underscoring that if consensus is shared on how the estimate is reached, the data is more reliable.
Key takeaways
The Project addressed the point that no public, standardized, cross-jurisdictional methodology currently exists to estimate the size of illegal gambling markets in a rigorous, reproducible, and policy-relevant manner. Key findings included that:
- The Framework is designed as a governance tool first, which is what gives it credibility, to inform regulatory decisions, institutional dialogue and data ecosystem improvement.
- Estimation is possible and necessary. It is not possible to directly measure an illegal market. But using the right methodology – looking at channelization rates, meaning what share of gaming activity the licensed market is actually capturing – structured, defensible estimates can be produced. The Project validated this across six pilot jurisdictions: the UK, Quebec, Chile, Singapore, Morocco, and Germany, offering a meaningful proof of concept.
- Methodology is credibility. In a space where anyone can claim a number, the WLA’s real advantage is having the most rigorous and transparent process for producing those numbers.
- Uncertainty is information, not a weakness. In the case of Germany, a very wide range of possible outcomes was demonstrated. Rather than a model failing, the model is telling something true, and important: the German market is in structural transition, and the data environment is volatile. This should be communicated honestly, rather than drawing conclusions the data doesn’t support.
Why the WLA leads global efforts to tackle illegal gambling
All state-licensed lotteries around the world face a threat from operators that are not authorized by local regulators to offer gaming products or services in their respective jurisdictions. Such operators jeopardize industry integrity, threaten public trust, consumer protection, and the social contract that underpins everything the licensed sector stands for.
This Project greatly contributes to the broader fight to combat sophisticated, technology-driven businesses that operate across borders because they can, given that enforcement frameworks have struggled to keep up.
Robert Chvátal, Chair of the WLA Combating Illegal Lotteries and Betting Committee (CILBC), responsible for the Project, commented on how it will assist regulators:
“The only way to change that dynamic is to give governments and regulators the solid evidence they need to act with confidence, and that’s exactly what this framework is designed to provide.”
The WLA has ramped up efforts to support members in tackling these issues through the work of the CILBC, which is dedicated to reviewing and developing tools and resources to help member lotteries uphold that principle with stakeholders in every region.
The Framework sits alongside the broader toolkit developed by the CILBC for members, including: payment risk templates, enforcement letter templates, standardized definitions – designed to help members act, not just analyze.
Find out more about the work of the WLA CILBC
More about the Workshop
Experts including from CK Consulting, the Council of Europe, H2 Gambling Capital, Interpol, and UNIL, discussed the new framework and country-level outputs from the pilot project.
Additionally, representatives from Regional Associations, including Asia Pacific (APLA), Europe (EL)and North America (NASPL), as well as WLA lottery members Allwyn, Singapore Pools, The Hong Kong Jockey Club, and West Lotto, also participated.
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Note: Top photo - left to right: Francisco Portugal - INTERPOL, Lucile Goulard - WLA, Julien Chopin - UNIL, Stefano Caneppele - UNIL, Luca Esposito - WLA, Nicolas Sayde - Council of Europe, David Henwood - H2 Gambling Capital, John Teo - APLA, Christian Kalb - CK Consulting, Lucas Tosi Rodriguez - UNIL.
