More than 6,100 active illegal websites offering casino games are available to Polish users, compared with just one legal online casino. Data collected by the Graj Legalnie Association show the scale of a phenomenon which, according to experts, is slipping out of control and undermining the effectiveness of the current regulatory model. This means that a significant part of the market now operates outside real state supervision.
“For every legally operating online casino platform, there are now more than six thousand illegal services. This is no longer a loophole in the system — it is proof of its ineffectiveness. We are talking about a market where Poles deposited around PLN 15 billion with illegal operators in one year. These are funds that, in practice, flow out of Poland and remain beyond any control — often to entities registered in regulatory havens, but in reality linked to Russian capital,” said Zdzisław Kostrubała, President of the Graj Legalnie Association.
Illegal operators operate in Poland outside any control by Polish authorities.
“The problem concerns more than 3 million users in Poland who use these services without any state protection. This means not only the risk of losing money and data, but also serious systemic threats, including the risk of money laundering and the potential financing of criminal or terrorist activities. If we compare this with the sports betting market, where a licensing model operates, we see a completely different scale — around 200 illegal websites per one legal operator. This shows one thing: where the licensing model works, the grey market is genuinely smaller,” he added.
According to the analyses conducted, more than 6,100 illegal domains operate in the online casino market, while only one legal platform is available. This means that the average user has many times greater access to illegal offers than to legal ones. In the sports betting segment, there are more than 3,500 illegal websites compared with 17 licensed operators.
“This comparison clearly shows that the current monopoly model in the area of online casinos encourages the development of the grey market on a scale incomparably greater than the licensing system. The difference is nearly thirtyfold,” Kostrubała emphasised.
As the Association points out, the problem is not only the number of illegal operators, but also their real accessibility. Thousands of websites remain available to users in Poland despite the existence of a register of prohibited domains.
“We are dealing with a situation in which state tools exist, but they do not provide effective market protection. The blocking system does not keep pace with digital reality, and users in practice have almost unrestricted access to illegal services,” Kostrubała noted.
Graj Legalnie’s analyses also show that operators functioning outside the system use widely available payment methods such as BLIK, payment cards, Revolut, digital wallets and cryptocurrencies. This means that a user can fund an illegal casino within seconds, using the same tools as in the legal economy.
“The fact that one of the most popular payment methods in Poland is being used by illegal gambling services raises serious questions about the effectiveness of current control mechanisms,” Kostrubała said.
In the material submitted to the Ministry of Finance, the Association included a detailed list of domains operating outside the legal system. The list covers thousands of addresses functioning in multiple variants, allowing operators to bypass blocks and maintain constant availability for users.
“We are no longer talking about an industry problem, but about a real threat to consumer safety and state stability. Without urgent, systemic changes, the scale of the grey market will continue to grow,” Kostrubała concluded.
Many European countries have moved away from a monopoly model towards licensing systems, which allow the market to be controlled more effectively and help reduce the grey market. Poland remains one of the few exceptions in this area.
