Regulators from four continents say the next phase of gambling oversight will be won or lost on enforcement that crosses borders and on faster, shared responses to risks amplified by technology. Their remarks, made during a recent panel at IAGR2025 in Toronto, point to a world in which legal markets are expanding but pressure from offshore sites, crypto payments and automated play is growing even faster.
Illegal market pressure forces a rethink
Dutch regulator Michel Groothuizen warned that keeping crypto outside the licensed market may be backfiring. “Crypto gambling is forbidden, at least on the licensed market, but I think we will be forced to change our policy,” he said, arguing the stance risks becoming “more and more kind of ostrich policy, more than 30% of the young adults already have crypto accounts and as long as we continue making it impossible on the legal markets they have to go to the illegal market.”
The economic stakes, he suggested, are already visible. “90% of Dutch players still use licensed platforms,” but “half of the money spent on gambling may already be flowing to unregulated operators, many of which accept crypto,” explained IAGR.
Nigeria’s experience also underscores the enforcement challenge. Bashir Are, who leads the Lagos State Lotteries and Gaming Authority, said: “Crypto is a huge problem. Nigeria alone is in the top five when you look at the cryptocurrency transaction volume.” His teams are already adapting: “We use AI to detect some cryptocurrency betting through our enforcement team. Most operators in the black market accept cryptocurrency for betting.”
But rule-making lags the reality on the ground. “If there is no regulation, that means they are not committing any crime. Regulations are in process,” he said.
Ontario’s regulator has shifted tactics as well: less about waiting for new statutes and more about cutting off illegal operators’ reach. “We are the regulator. We deal with those who are regulated. What we heard from our registrants is that we have a role [to address the illegal market] as well,” said Dr Karin Schnarr, CEO and Registrar of the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO). Without direct jurisdiction over offshore sites, the AGCO has targeted platforms that enable them. “If you’re an illegal igaming site, you may have a presence on Facebook or Instagram… we reached out to Meta and said: here are the 50 legal operators in Ontario, and here’s a list of the top 10 illegal ones.” The response, she said, was tangible.
Responsible gambling remains the first test
For all the tactical shifts, the officials were explicit about the end goal. Bashir Are, from Nigeria, put it bluntly: “The main reason why we regulate is to control abuse. Gambling involves risk, money, psychology and the welfare of society. So the main reason we regulate is the danger of gambling addiction or underage gambling.” Cooperation between African authorities is steady and pragmatic, he added, “because injury to one is injury to all, and we have to protect our people.”
Singapore’s model illustrates how far some jurisdictions have gone to embed guardrails. Chun Ching Teo, Chief Executive of the Gambling Regulatory Authority, said “RG was a key area that we wanted to do well, because it is the piece that politicians and the public were most concerned about when we wanted to introduce casinos.” The regime includes multiple layers: “There’s self-exclusion, there’s family exclusion: a family member can apply to have you excluded. We have exclusion by law, which means that all bankrupts, all persons who are receiving financial assistance, all persons who are staying in government subsidised rental housing, are automatically excluded.” The database is shared “with both licensed casinos and the national betting operator.”
Schnarr, from Canada, argued that the tools must evolve with the products. As Ontario’s online market matures, she said, “as the forms of gaming change, we evolve our RG tools related to that.” And while sanctions will always be part of the job, “we have to be proactive about it, not just to look as regulators on the punitive side.”
The next steps: share data, share the load
No single regulator can police a borderless internet. Groothuizen, from the Dutch regulator, said European authorities are “more and more realising that we are facing the same problems… [and] we should join forces.” The Netherlands has launched a domestic alliance spanning regulators, licensed operators, financial institutions and tech companies to move faster against illegal actors because “only when we are able to really hit the illegal market, it’s reasonable for them to stay and invest in the Dutch market.”
Bashir Are echoed the need for formal ties across jurisdictions: “Let us help each other… so we can reduce the number of illegal operators and protect consumers.” He confirmed that in Nigeria outreach to big platforms mirrors Ontario’s approach: “We give them a list of illegal operators in our environment, just exactly what you are doing.”
Can AI help? Teo said that, in Singapore, operators and regulators alike are adopting AI, but lines must be drawn. “We are working out a set of guidelines on what not to use AI for especially if it becomes exploitative.” He supports responsible deployment in areas like AML and harm prevention, but he also issued an unusual caution about over-reliance inside agencies: “There’s a credible study that suggests that doctors who use AI… their own skills have decreased. So you need ‘AI fasting’, in order to make sure your people do not [let] their own skills deteriorate.”
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