Expert outlines three key challenges facing European gambling regulation
Kristof Szucs, co-founder and principal at Kyborg.ai, has identified three persistent friction points in European gambling regulation in 2026: the stalled portability of self-exclusion across jurisdictions, the monitoring gap between land-based and remote operators, and the governance structures that have proven effective against match-fixing.
In an exclusive interview with SiGMA News, Szucs also assessed the potential of prediction markets in the CEECA region and explained why the first European entrant into that space is unlikely to be a gambling operator.
Self-exclusion portability across Europe
The European Commission has been discussing cross-border self-exclusion since 2014. Today, GAMSTOP (the UK’s national self-exclusion register), the Malta Gaming Authority, Germany’s GGL (the federal gambling regulator established in 2021), and most other European jurisdictions continue to operate separate exclusion systems. Szucs argues the technical challenge is secondary to a deeper structural problem.
“Self-exclusion sits inside the operator’s identity stack alongside KYC, age verification, payment screening, and AML transaction monitoring, and most of those modules were built separately and integrated loosely,” he says.
To connect the UKGC and MGA systems, a unified technical specification would be needed to govern data fields, retention periods, and update intervals. Szucs says that without these standards, portability is more of a promise than a real control.
He also mentions an unresolved liability question: if an MGA-licensed operator accepts a UK player who is self-excluded because a data transfer failed, who bears regulatory responsibility? He says that until this is sorted out, there will not be much progress.
What land-based casinos can learn from online operators?
Szucs identifies continuous monitoring as the clearest advantage online operators hold over their land-based counterparts. Remote platforms are observed in near real time through their own systems and regulator feeds. Land-based venues still rely primarily on periodic inspections.
He cites the Stadtcasino Baden case in Switzerland, where fifteen players exceeded CHF 100,000 betting limits over an extended period without triggering any control alerts. “That was not a tool failure. It was a monitoring architecture failure, something that would not have been possible for an online operator,” he says.
Other practices that would be beneficial to implement in a land-based environment include transaction-level AML controls applied at the point of deposit rather than in end-of-day summaries and sequenced responsible gambling interventions, such as limits, time-outs and self-exclusion tools, which are triggered by behavioural patterns rather than only when a player approaches the cashier.
However, commercial and cultural resistance remains significant. Historically, high-value land-based players have valued discretion, and operators fear that visible monitoring will push those customers towards less regulated jurisdictions.
Responsible gambling tools: complementary, not competing
Szucs says that deposit limits and AI-driven behavioural analytics are not competing solutions. Deposit limits and other tools that let players set spending or time restrictions in advance can make it hard at the point of decision-making. Studies show that they can reduce harm when applied on a mandatory basis.
Behavioural analytics serves a different function. It aims to identify emerging behavioural patterns at an early stage. This helps operators to step in before hard limits become necessary. At the moment, around 30 per cent of organisations in Western Europe are using behavioural analytics, and lower figures are seen in most other regions.
Szucs says there is a risk that operators may market AI tools to reduce user friction rather than strengthen player protection. The deposit limits that are now compulsory only offer protection when the gambling industry is regulated properly. Germany’s experience shows the problem: if there are strict limits that only apply to the licensed channel, it can push activity towards unlicensed operators.
Governance, not detection, is the decisive factor in combating match-fixing
Kristof Szucs clearly separates countries that have reduced match-fixing from those that have not. Italy’s model works closely with CONI (the National Olympic Committee, which oversees sporting discipline and anti-corruption matters) and the Guardia di Finanza (the financial police, responsible for investigating economic crime). In the UK, the Sports Betting Integrity Unit works with the Gambling Commission to coordinate information-sharing between bookmakers and sports governing bodies. Szucs says that both models work because information about betting, police files and how sports teams are punished is shared in one system rather than reported separately.
Another important thing to do is to make sure that operators follow the rules in their licence. If unusual betting patterns are not reported quickly, the licence could be taken away instead of just a fine. This would quickly change how reporting is done. Monitoring should also focus on line movement and market activity before matches, rather than analysing results afterwards. Systems such as Sportradar’s Universal Fraud Detection System and the IBIA (International Betting Integrity Association) framework are built on this idea.
Szucs concludes that most persistent problems in this area are governance failures, not detection failures. The necessary data typically exists. The decisive factor is whether federations, regulators and leagues are politically prepared to act once patterns have been identified. Practical compliance architecture, clear liability allocation and integrated governance pipelines consistently outperform fragmented technical solutions or voluntary reporting arrangements.
This article was first published in Russian on 27 May 2026.
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