Spain Tops 2024s Table of Gambling Operator Fines
Fines issued to gambling operators during 2025 were significantly down on 2024’s €429.1 million. Nevertheless, it was a costly year for rule breakers.
Thirteen €5 million penalties helped Spain top the gambling operator fines list for 2024. © Getty Images
Key Facts:
- Gambling Industry fines surpassed €185 Million in 2024
- Spain topped the table, issuing €65.3 million in fines
- The Netherlands Gambling Authority has already issued its first fines of the year
- Italy has come down hard on social media
Despite 2023 producing record fines, reprimands and sanctions, gambling regulators across the globe have uncovered significant social responsibility, anti-money laundering and other regulatory failures during the past 12 months.
Breaches by illegal, legal, regulated and licensed gambling operators during 2024 resulted in c€185 million in fines. Nevertheless, the figure was significantly down on the €429.1 million in penalties issued worldwide during 2023.
No Nonsense Spain Is Fine Happy
Spain topped the fines chart in 2024. Thirteen gambling companies guilty of operating in the local market without a license were each slapped with €5 million fines by the Directorate General for the Regulation of Gambling (DGOJ). They were also given a two-year disqualification.
Spain’s Ministry for Consumer Affairs set a personal best with €65,325,000 in fines during 2024. Making a small contribution was Codere Online. One of the better-known online gambling sites with a Spanish operating license was ordered to pay a €162,500 fine for a Facebook advert it believed appealed to minors. Financial penalties imposed on online gambling firms in Spain since 2021 now total €398 million from 150-plus imposed sanctions.
Hefty Fines for Australian and Dutch Operators
Another country with regulators that imposed major fines was Australia. In 2024, it penalised operators with €56.7 million in penalties. SkyCity Adelaide Casino took the biggest rap. The Federal Court of Australia agreed it had breached the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act of 2006 and slapped it with a €41 million fine.
At the start of 2024, Kansspelautoriteit, the Netherlands Gambling Authority (NGA), imposed a €19.7 million fine on Gammix Ltd for allowing Dutch customers to access and play several unlicensed gambling products at several websites it owned. The regulator had previously fined Gammix for a similar offence in March 2023. The penalty then was €4.4 million.
Generally speaking, the NGA had little else to concern itself with, and it collected ‘only’ another €4 million in 2024 in fines. Potential rule-breakers should be aware that days into 2025, the regulator announced it had set out five core categories of increasing penalties depending on individual breaches of online gaming law.
Kansspelautoriteit has been busy since the turn of the year. Dutch News reported its first fine of 2025 was imposed on a Costa Rican-based site owner using a “mirror site” to circumvent an earlier ban.
“There was no age verification, so that minors were able to play, and inactivity fees were charged when people didn’t use their accounts for a period of time,” said Michel Groothuizen, chairman of the NGA, when explaining the reason for a €1 million penalty.
Swedish Appeals Conclude With Big Fine for Three
The exact sum the Swedish regulator, Spelinspektionen, has secured in fines during 2024 is unclear. However, it exceeds €11.1 million. An appeals system appears to have the €8.7 million fine imposed on Svenska Spel Sport & Casino – the digital arm of the state-owned Swedish gambling operator – in limbo.
One week before Christmas, Sweden’s Supreme Administrative Court declared three operators were out of appeals and must now pay Spelinspektionen a combined €8.7 in fines.
Malta-based ComeOn Group was the hardest hit. A 2021 violation of bonus rules regarding four of its brands cost it €5.1 million. Spooniker must pay €2.6 million for offering unauthorised bonuses and lotteries without a licence in March 2020. Mr Green will pay €1.2 million over anti-money laundering and duty of care failures.
$7.5 Million Fine for MGM Vegas Failures
One US fine accounted for the bulk of the financial penalties the US Gaming Commission issued during 2024. The US Justice Department fined MGM Resorts $7.5 million in January for facilitating illegal sports wagering.
The former president and chief operating officer of MGM Grand and Resorts World Las Vegas, Scott Sibella, pleaded guilty to failing to file suspicious activities reports while employed at MGM, and he was later sentenced to one year’s probation and personally fined $9,500.
UK Well Down and Just One Fine for Finland
It was almost a ‘worst to first’ case for the UK’s Gambling Commission (UKGC). In 2023, it collected a jaw-dropping £214.2 million (€255.9 million). This time, the sum total was £6.6 million (€7.9 million).
If it were not for the €6.9 million fine imposed on Gamseys Operations Ltd (operator of 16 websites) – primarily for failing to identify customers at risk of experiencing harms associated with gambling and inadequate deposit limits – the UKGC would sit below Finland on the 2024 fines list.
For ignoring warnings about marketing gambling games to minors on television, the Finnish Police Board’s Gambling Administration fined the Finnish government-owned Veikkaus Oy, which holds a contentious betting monopoly in the country, €2.9 million in November. No other fines were listed in Finland in 2024.
Social Media Gets Big Italian Hit
Meanwhile, no operators in the booming online gaming sector were significantly fined in Italy in 2024. However, the country’s national regulatory agency for the communication industries – Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni (AGCOM) – gave X a €1.35 million fine for nine counts of verified X accounts advertising gaming and betting activities.
Promotional content for gaming and betting on 18 social media profiles – five on Instagram and 13 on Facebook – plus 32 sponsored video and image posts aimed at promoting or advertising online gaming and betting activities saw the same regulator issue Meta with a €5.58 million penalty.
