Call for Papers: Regulation of Online Gambling: Policy, Tools, and International Collaboration

Michael Egerer & Sebastien Berret, CEACG
Published 9 Apr 2025

The editors that brought you Gambling Policies in European Welfare States (2018) and The Global Gambling Industry (2022) venture into (the cyber)space.

Online gambling has been increasing for years, particularly in the Nordic countries, where a considerable proportion of gambling now happens online. In Denmark and Finland, online gambling revenue accounted for more than 60 percent of their respective total gambling market in 2021. That same year, Sweden was the European country whose online gambling market accounted for the largest proportion of total gambling revenue, with 80% of its gambling revenue coming from online sales (European Gaming and Betting Association, 2022).

Public health concerns and regulatory gaps

With continuous availability, high-intensity products, high prevalence among young people, targeted marketing, and other industry practices, online gambling poses an even more severe burden on public health than land-based gambling. Yet, the regulation of online gambling lags behind, largely following strategies developed for the land-based market.

Opportunities for harm prevention

While online gambling creates new risks, it also offers novel possibilities for harm reduction and prevention. Their implementation requires online-specific regulatory approaches. Preventive policies need new research to evaluate their efficiency and feasibility. Additionally, strong political will is required to frame policies that prioritize limiting harm to individuals and societies over advancing commercial interests.

Challenges of cross-border regulation

The global nature of cyberspace poses a challenge to national regulators, requiring patience, innovative strategies, decisive enforcement, and international collaboration when implementing online gambling policies. This edited collection explores three key topics in developing state-of-the-art regulation of online gambling:

Framing and targets of policies
Methods and tools for harm prevention
Reach of regulation and global collaboration

The framing, underlying expectations, and aims of policies regulating online gambling can significantly impact their implementation. Stakeholders with private (e.g., online gambling companies) and public (e.g., nation-states and organizations profiting from gambling revenue) interests shape how gambling is perceived. National regulators face the challenge of cross-border supply, associated with powerful financial interests.

Comparable to large technology and online companies (such as Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple), multinational online gambling operators easily evade national regulation and taxation. Companies are often structured to gain an edge over national regulators. Transnational marketing and supply of online services require regulatory actions by international organizations. Several treaties administered by European, Asian, American, and United Nations institutions could incorporate gambling into their frameworks. The WHO and the Council of Europe have strategic roles in overseeing progress in addressing this responsibility. This book aims to map the available options and facilities within this area of extensive discussion and debate.

Technology and regulation: Risks and opportunities

Online gambling also presents concrete tools for preventing gambling-related harm. While gambling companies use behavioral tracking data to boost their business by profiling, targeting, and cross-analyzing data from various sources, data and algorithms can also be leveraged to identify harmful gambling patterns. However, little research has critically assessed these data-driven practices from a harm prevention perspective.

Limiting availability and accessibility can be more difficult to implement in online environments compared to land-based markets. Yet, online markets and activities have been successfully regulated in other areas, such as the protection of proprietary rights. In online gambling, many availability limits pertain to preventing unlicensed gambling offers. Any regulation aiming to minimize harm must ensure it is not circumvented by unlicensed or illegal operators.

Finally, online gambling is integrally dependent on online infrastructures, including payment services, product developers, blockchain technologies, investors, test houses, affiliate marketers, and social media. Little is currently known about how to regulate these adjacent sectors and what their regulation means for gambling harm prevention.

These are just some examples of the importance and necessity of online gambling-specific regulation and research, which we hope to address in our edited volume Regulation of Online Gambling: Policy, Tools, and International Collaboration.