Greek Authorities Target 18 Influencers Over Illegal Gambling Promotion
Greek authorities have filed complaints against 18 social-media influencers, including figures from the music and fashion industries, over allegations that they promoted illegal online betting sites to their followers.
According to To Vima, the cases are part of a wider push by Greek authorities to curb an illegal betting market the government estimates generated around €1.8 billion in 2025, with roughly 900,000 people taking part in some form of unauthorised betting.
Authorities say they have already identified and blocked thousands of websites operating outside the country's licensed gambling framework.
Influencers Seen As Growing Enforcement Target
Officials said influencers have become an increasingly common route for illegal operators to reach new customers, whether through direct posts, videos and livestreams, or indirectly via promotional links, discount codes and other incentives that push followers to register and place bets.
Authorities have been given expanded powers to act against this kind of promotion, including fines of up to €50,000 for illegally advertising gambling services.
The 18 cases span both established public figures with large followings and smaller content creators, reflecting how deeply embedded gambling promotion has become across different tiers of Greek social media, from mainstream celebrity endorsements down to niche, engagement-driven accounts.
Financial measures can now also be used to target payments made to and winnings received from unauthorised platforms, an approach designed to make it harder for illegal operators to move money through the Greek banking system in the first place.
Regulator Adding AI Tools To Track Illegal Operators
The Hellenic Gaming Commission (EEEP), which oversees the country's licensed gambling market, is central to the crackdown, with responsibility for identifying unauthorised operators and maintaining the official blacklist of sites that internet providers must block.
The regulator is incorporating artificial intelligence and other digital tools into its monitoring work to keep pace with illegal platforms that increasingly shift domains and marketing channels to avoid detection.
Greece has one of the more established regulated online casino sites and gambling markets in Europe, but the scale of the parallel illegal market highlighted by this enforcement action underlines a challenge shared by several European regulators: licensed operators are competing against offshore platforms that pay no local tax and face none of the player-protection requirements imposed on regulated brands.
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The EEEP has previously used its powers against licensed operators as well, including a 2023 case in which Greece's competition authority fined state-linked operator OPAP more than €24.5 million for separate competition-law infringements, underscoring that enforcement in the Greek market extends across both the licensed and unlicensed sides of the industry.
The regulator maintains a public blacklist of blocked domains that Greek internet service providers must restrict, though illegal operators frequently register new domains to evade individual blocks.
