Across Europe, gambling carve-outs are fuelling an industry rift
Across Europe, governments are tightening gambling rules in the name of consumer protection while leaving parts of the market untouched. That has opened a political and commercial fault line: private operators say selective exemptions for state lotteries, horse racing and other favoured products distort competition, while the beneficiaries argue that gambling should not be treated as a single category.
In Belgium, the Constitutional Court just ruled that the legislator cannot justify shielding National Lottery products from restrictions imposed on private operators. In Sweden and the UK, horse racing interests have openly argued that their products should be taxed more lightly than online verticals. In France, the fight has taken a different form, with casino groups and other industry voices opposing the authorisation of online casino gambling, saying such a move would threaten jobs, tax revenues and the balance of the existing market. Meanwhile, the expansion of FDJ United, the former French state lottery, has revived questions about whether one operator is being allowed to dominate too much of the market.
Taken together, the disputes point to a broader European argument over how gambling should be regulated: by applying one set of rules across the board, or by creating exceptions for products seen as less harmful, more culturally valuable, or more useful to the state.
Belgium puts selective rules under scrutiny
In Belgium, a recent ruling by the Constitutional Court backed most of the country’s tougher gambling restrictions, including a higher minimum age and limits on advertising and incentives. But it also found that exempting the National Lottery from those measures could not stand.
According to the ruling, that distinction had become harder to defend because lottery products were beginning to resemble the games offered by private operators. The court relied on advice from the Belgian Gaming Commission, which said some lotteries sold online had “become increasingly gamified” and were now using presentation methods associated with commercial gambling.
If a lottery scratchcard app starts to look and feel like an online casino product, operators ask, why should one face tougher restrictions than the other?
The court has given Belgium’s legislature until the end of 2026 to resolve the disparity. In doing so, it has handed fresh ammunition to companies across Europe that argue governments are using public-interest language to justify selective protection for state-backed rivals.
Horse racing draws a line
Nowhere is the internal split sharper than in the debate over tax. In Sweden, ATG, the legacy horse racing operator, has long argued that different gambling products should be taxed differently, with online casino bearing a heavier burden than racing.
In late 2025, Hasse Lord Skarplöth, then chief executive of ATG, praised the British government’s decision to raise taxes on online casino-style gambling while leaving horse racing untouched, and said: “Either we continue to pretend that all forms of gambling are equal, or we tax according to actual risk and benefit.”
Online operators have strongly pushed back against that argument. BOS, the Swedish trade body, says higher taxes on online gambling would weaken the licensed market and drive players elsewhere. Gustaf Hoffstedt, its secretary general, put the case bluntly: “The higher the tax, the greater the risk that the consumer will choose unlicensed gambling, where neither gambling tax nor consumer protection exists.”
In Britain, as ministers weighed gambling tax reform last year, racing interests broke with the wider industry and supported higher taxes on online casino products while pressing for horseracing to be treated separately. When the government confirmed a surprisingly sharp rise in remote gaming duty while leaving horseracing duty unchanged, the split was laid bare. Racing welcomed the exemption, and the British Horseracing Authority said the decision showed the government had “rightly recognised that racing is a unique national asset culturally, socially and economically”.
Operators outside racing saw the move rather differently. Grainne Hurst, chief executive of the Betting and Gaming Council, warned that tougher taxes on remote products would strengthen offshore competition, calling illegal firms “parasite operators” that “don’t pay tax, don’t care about safer gambling, and do not contribute a penny to the Levy”.
France and the monopoly question
In France, the argument is less about tax bands than market power. The former state lottery, now FDJ United, has expanded its reach through the acquisition of Kindred, prompting warnings that the lines between monopoly protection and commercial competition are becoming dangerously blurred.
The debate in France also overlaps with the fight over online casino legalisation, with established land-based operators leading the opposition. Nicolas Béraud, head of the online gaming association Afjel, argued that the market already exists in practice, saying: “Four million French people are already playing on these sites, generating an estimated €2 billion in gross gaming revenue.” Casino operators and regulators have countered that opening the market would destabilise the sector and increase harm.
What links these disputes is the struggle over who gets to claim the consumer-protection argument. State lotteries, horse racing bodies and land-based interests say their products are different and deserve different treatment. Online operators say those exemptions often amount to state-sanctioned market advantage.
Europe’s gambling market is increasingly being regulated not as one industry, but as a hierarchy. The question is whether governments can keep drawing those lines once rival products start to look, function, and compete in much the same way.
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