InfoCons Consumer Protection : Interview with Leonidas Karakidis , Former Adviser to the President of the Hellenic Gaming Commission , on Gambling Regulation in Greece and the Balkans
Brief Personal Presentation
Leonidas Karakidis is a regulatory and public affairs professional with over 20 years of international experience in gambling market governance, financial regulation, and cross-border compliance. Between 2021 and 2025 he served as Senior Advisor to the President of the Hellenic Gaming Commission (HGC), where he worked on regulatory framework design, AML supervision, and engagement with government bodies and international regulators. He is currently completing a PhD in Accounting and Finance at the University of the Peloponnese, examining gambling taxation, regulatory design and unlicensed online gambling participation across the United Kingdom, Greece, and the Balkan countries – research presented at international gambling studies conferences including EASG. He is a Certified Public Accountant with an MSc in Banking & Finance from the University of Stirling and has built his gaming and financial regulation career across Greece, the UK, and Malta.
- From your perspective as a regulator, what is the single biggest challenge facing the gambling industry in Greece today — and has that challenge changed significantly over the last five years?
The single biggest challenge remains the same as the one that defined the entire period after 2021, but its nature has changed: keeping the regulated market competitive enough to divert demand away from unlicensed operators, while the fiscal side of policy continues to move in the opposite direction. Five years ago, the priority was to establish the framework itself – licensing procedures, technical standards, and the transitional regime for existing operators. That job has been completed; Greece now has one of the most coherent systems with a single regulator in the region. The challenge today is different and, in some ways, more difficult: it concerns effective regulation. The tax increase on player winnings that took effect on 1 July 2026 – raising rates from 15% to 20% on winnings between €100 and €500, and from 20% to 30% above €500 – is a good example. This is a rational decision from a revenue perspective, when considered in isolation, and is expected to generate approximately €50 million in additional revenue in its first six months. However, my research indicates that this type of taxation, which burdens players, is precisely the variable most strongly associated with migration to illegal platforms. So, the challenge has shifted from “how do we build a regulator” to “how do we stop good enforcement work being undermined by fiscal decisions taken without reference to their respective behavioral effects”.
- Greece has moved towards a more structured and regulated gambling environment in recent years. What do you think Greece is doing particularly well compared with other European markets?
From an institutional perspective, Greece has built something genuinely solid. The Hellenic Gaming Commission (HGC) operates as a single, comprehensive supervisory authority covering licensing, certification, commercial communication and enforcement, which avoids the fragmentation you see in some neighboring jurisdictions where responsibilities are split across several bodies. The “Blacklist” mechanism, which by 2025 already covered close to 10,000 unlicensed websites, works in combination with binding obligations on internet service providers to block access and on banks to suspend related transactions, a complete enforcement chain by regional standards. The “Whistlers” reporting platform (whistlers.hgc.gov.gr) is also a good example of participatory enforcement: it lets citizens report illegal sites, apps, affiliates and land-based venues, by name or anonymously, and directly feeds into the cases handled by HGC. At the same time, the relationship between the regulator and the two licensed online operators’ associations has matured into genuine institutional dialogue, through consultations on proposed changes and structured input from the market side. Very few Balkan regulators combine that degree of institutional coherence with that level of operator engagement.
- When you look at neighbouring Balkan countries such as Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia or North Macedonia, where do you see the biggest differences in the way gambling is regulated and supervised?
My research focused specifically on Romania, Croatia and Slovenia, together with Greece and the UK, so I can speak with more confidence about those three than about Bulgaria, Serbia or North Macedonia. The biggest structural difference among these countries concerns market design rather than intent – all of these regulators are trying to solve the same problem, but with different tools. Romania was actually ahead of Greece in one way: its licensing framework dates to 2015, and by 2024 it had 32 licensed online operators generating roughly €2.28 billion in gross gaming revenue, a much more competitive and fragmented market than Greece’s. But Romania’s National Gambling Office (ONJN) has broader and, in practice, more challenging responsibilities. According to its own estimates, it takes around 30-40 days to get a single illegal site blocked, against a target list of approximately 5,000 brands compared to around 1,478 actually blocked at the time of the interviews I conducted. Croatia and Slovenia sit at an intermediate point: Slovenia has strong state involvement through a near-monopoly structure, while Croatia’s market is smaller and more exposed to offshore leakage. The only similarity between Greece, Romania and Croatia is that all three countries tax players’ winnings directly, compared the UK’s operator-only model. And that specific policy choice, more than any difference in enforcement technology, is what drives most of the players in the illegal market, based on my data.
- How difficult is it for a regulator to keep up with the rapid development of online gambling, especially when technology, payment methods, advertising and new forms of gaming evolve much faster than legislation?
It is really difficult, and I don’t think any regulator in the region has fully solved it. Legislation is, by its nature, reactive. It responds to a problem only once it becomes visible and gains political significance, while illegal operators, payment intermediaries and affiliate networks adapt in real time. What I heard consistently in my interviews with both regulators and industry executives across Greece and Romania is that traditional tools (blacklists, domain blocking, licensing conditions etc.) are necessary, but they are no longer sufficient on their own. The most promising approach, and one that several regulators are already moving toward, is investment in AI-based monitoring of payment flows and website traffic, closer cooperation with search engines and social media platforms to catch advertising and affiliate leakage before it reaches consumers, and mixed enforcement teams that combine regulatory inspectors with law-enforcement and IT expertise, rather than operating in isolation. None of these measures replace legislation, but they save time that legislative processes, by their very nature, cannot provide.
- Responsible gambling is increasingly becoming a central issue. In your experience, which tools actually work in practice — self-exclusion, deposit limits, affordability checks, advertising restrictions, player monitoring — and which ones look better on paper than they work in reality?
Self-exclusion is the most characteristic example of a tool that is valuable but incomplete: it works well for the licensed market, but my data show a specific and troubling group of self-excluded players who then move to unlicensed sites precisely because that is now the only place left for them to play. Deposit limits and player monitoring tend to work better where they are functionally integrated, rather than treated as a compliance checkbox. When they are used well, they give operators and regulators an early signal on escalating behavior. Affordability checks are more difficult to evaluate in practice: they are conceptually appropriate, but when they are poorly designed, they generate friction that, again, can push players toward platforms with no checks at all. Advertising restrictions are the category that most clearly “looks better on paper than in reality”, as they are largely a national tool applied to a phenomenon that is structurally cross-border and digital. Restricting domestic advertising does little to stop unlicensed operators marketing directly through social media and affiliate networks based outside the jurisdiction. In short, tools that reduce friction inside the legal market tend to work; tools that only add friction, without an equally strong channelization strategy behind them, tend simply to just shift the risk rather than reduce it.
- One of the biggest challenges in Southeast Europe seems to be the relationship between the regulated market and the illegal or unlicensed market. How serious is this problem in Greece, and what can regulators realistically do about it?
The problem is serious, and its extent is well documented. A study ordered by HGC (KAPA Research) found that around 900,000 people in Greece gambled on unlicensed platforms in 2025, spending approximately €2 billion, while the state budget loses approximately €400 million in taxes. That is not a marginal phenomenon; it is a parallel market operating alongside the licensed one. What regulators can realistically do falls into three categories. First, they can continue to strengthen the existing enforcement framework, such as the Blacklist, the obligations on ISPs and banks, and structural investigations targeting the B2B providers and digital platforms that enable illegal operators, not just the commercial brands visible to the public. Second, they should invest in engagement and technology, such as Whistlers, AI-assisted monitoring, “mystery shopper” audits, because law enforcement capacity alone cannot keep pace with a purely digital, borderless phenomenon. Third, and this is the point my research keeps coming back to, the tax aspect of the issue must be addressed: taxing players’ winnings is, according to my data, one of the strongest and most consistent predictors of migration to illegal platforms, and no exclusion or monitoring measure can fully compensate for the persistent gap in incentives between what the legal and illegal markets offer to players.
- Do you think the Balkan gambling markets would benefit from greater regional cooperation between regulators — for example, sharing information about operators, illegal websites, suspicious transactions and responsible-gambling practices? Did you try cooperating with Romanian authorities, for example?
Yes, and my research findings point directly to that conclusion. From my study, I found that cooperation between gambling regulators and the industry is still quite limited, especially between different countries. For example, in Romania, communication between the regulator and licensed operators is often informal, while more structured cooperation, such as joint inspections, is still developing. There is also no specific mechanism between Greece and Romania for sharing information about illegal operators, suspicious transactions, or responsible gambling. Most cooperation takes place through broader EU or AML networks rather than gambling-specific channels. Through my PhD research, I had the opportunity to speak with regulators and industry representatives in both countries, which showed me that the two systems operate quite independently. I believe that a European-level coordinating body could help improve this situation by supporting information sharing and common standards, without replacing national regulators.
- There is often a difficult balance between protecting vulnerable players and allowing a legitimate gambling industry to operate competitively. Where do you think regulators should draw that line?
I think regulators need to find a balance between protecting vulnerable players and keeping the legal gambling market competitive. These two goals are not necessarily in conflict, because if the legal market becomes too restrictive, players may move to illegal platforms where there are fewer protections. In my opinion, regulators should therefore consider whether each new measure makes the legal market safer and more attractive than the illegal market. If regulations become stricter without strong enforcement against illegal operators, they may actually push more players towards the illegal market. This is what I refer to in my PhD research as the “Regulatory Tightening Paradox”.
- If you could change one thing about the current gambling regulatory framework in Greece — whether legislation, enforcement, technology or institutional cooperation — what would it be, and why?
I would change the taxation system in Greece by moving away from taxing players’ winnings and focusing more on taxing gambling operators based on their gross gaming revenue. This is closer to the UK model, where players do not pay tax on their winnings. Based on my PhD research, this approach seems to reduce the incentive for players to move to illegal gambling platforms. It could also make the legal market more attractive and fair from the players’ perspective. Of course, Greece would need to consider how to replace any lost tax revenue, but I believe that this change could improve channelization and player protection more effectively than enforcement measures alone.
- Looking five years ahead, what do you think will be the biggest regulatory challenge for gambling authorities in Greece and the Balkans: artificial intelligence, cryptocurrencies and new payment systems, increasingly sophisticated online products, illegal operators, advertising, or something we are not yet talking about?
I think the biggest challenge for gambling regulators in Greece and the Balkans will still be the illegal gambling market, although the technology used by both legal and illegal operators will become more advanced. I am particularly concerned about cryptocurrencies and alternative payment methods because they could make it more difficult for regulators and banks to block payments to illegal operators. At the same time, AI could make illegal platforms harder to detect, but it could also help regulators monitor the market more effectively. In my opinion, however, the main challenge will not only be technological but also regulatory. Authorities will need to make sure that taxation and regulations keep up with these changes and do not unintentionally encourage players to move to the illegal market.
- If you were suddenly appointed head of a gambling regulator in another Balkan country tomorrow – let’s say in Romania, what is the first thing you would look at — and what is the first mistake you would try to avoid?
If I were appointed head of a gambling regulator in another Balkan country, such as Romania, the first thing I would look at would be the effectiveness and speed of enforcement against illegal operators. I would want to understand whether the regulator has enough resources and capacity to identify and block unlicensed websites quickly. I would also examine the transactions connected to illegal gambling, including how they are identified, monitored, and blocked, and how long it takes to follow the full transaction cycle from the player to the gambling operator and through the payment provider or bank. Understanding this transaction cycle would help identify where illegal activity is taking place and where intervention would be most effective. I would also examine how the taxation system affects players’ behaviour and whether it encourages them to move to the illegal market. The first mistake I would try to avoid would be frequent and unpredictable changes to the tax system. Based on my interviews with industry representatives, changing the rules too often makes it difficult for licensed operators to plan and can create uncertainty for the whole market. I believe that strong enforcement, effective monitoring of transactions, and a stable, predictable regulatory and tax framework need to work together.
Questions answered by Mr. Leonidas Karakidis , Former Adviser to the President of the Hellenic Gaming Commission
