A.J. Koehn

Bookmakers in Poland are facing a fresh wave of social responsibility assessments by the Office of Competition and Consumer Protections (UOKiK).

Announced by the government, the assessments will affect local market players STS, Fortuna, Superbet, Bukmachers, E-toto Bukmachers, LV Bet and Totalbets.

SBC News understands that these are routine checks, and not a response to signals raised about potential breaches of obligations.

What the UOKiK will focus on is investigating whether there are cases of what it calls ‘dark patterns’ – practices used to manipulate consumer behaviour through front-facing UX, certain messaging or player incentives.

The assessments will cover all corners of bookmaker activity from websites to mobile apps, including the terms and conditions when entering an agreement with a customer.

Any shortcomings will be flagged by UOKiK’s system, which incorporates artificial intelligence that is trained to detect relevant issues.

Another major aspect that will be put..

The protection of Generation Z and Alpha audiences from gambling-related harms and risks has been established as the cornerstone of a new research partnership in Slovakia.

The Slovak Gambling Regulatory Authority (URHH) has launched its new “Safer Digital Future” mandate, to develop a comprehensive strategy for protecting young people from gambling risks and disorders.

The initiative has been established through a memorandum of cooperation with the Department of Digital Games at the Faculty of Mass Media Communication of the University of St Cyril and the research agency of Methodius in Trnava (FMK UCM).

Through the partnership, URHH and the university will gather evidence on the risks that emerging digital products and behaviours pose to younger audiences.

Research will focus particularly on the growing convergence between video gaming and gambling through features such as loot boxes, skin betting and randomised reward systems.

URHH warned that the traditional boundaries separati..

Three operators have had their appeals against penalty fees issued by the Swedish Gambling Authority, Spelinspektionen, rejected by the Administrative Court after a review.

A decision to uphold penalty fees given to Betsson, Snabbare and Spooniker was announced today by Spelinspektionen, who announced that the Administrative Court agreed with its view that the companies “committed serious violations of the money laundering regulations through insufficient customer due diligence measures”.

All penalty fees were handed out back in May 2025 for anti-money laundering (AML) failings.

Betsson was issued with a warning as well as a SEK6.5 million (£502k) fine.

Spelinspektionen selected customers to review based on a list of the 50 customers aged 18-29 who made the largest total deposits between 1 January-31 December 2023.

It found that the operators had failed to adequately identify the source of income for large deposits that could not be justified by the consumers’ taxable income.

I..

From 2026, Croatia will double the amount of funding generated by the country’s gambling sector for social and public interest programmes.

The announcement comes directly from Chief State Treasurer Danijela Stepić, who confirmed that her office has been allocated €214m to distribute to public programmes.

The figure represents a significant increase from the approximately €130m made available under the previous funding cycle.

Speaking at a conference hosted by the Ministry of Finance, Stepić outlined how the funds will be distributed under the government’s annual “Regulation on the Criteria for the Distribution of Revenues from Games of Chance.”

Plenkovic wants a ‘civil approach’ to gambling

The mandate forms part of the wider reforms carried out by the Democratic Union (HDZ) government during 2025 and 2026 to overhaul Croatia’s gambling laws and regulatory framework.

Winning a third consecutive term in office in 2024, Prime Minister Andrej Plenković fast-tracked amendments to the..

The ADM, Italy’s Customs and Monopolies Agency, will launch a new central complaints portal for online gambling disputes on 10 September.

The launch of the new portal was announced by the ADM on 3 August, as the agency completes a further directive of the reorganisation of Italy’s online gambling sector, focused on strengthening consumer protection and player safety.

Named the “Portale delle segnalazioni”, the ADM has created a central system to track disputes between customers and licensed online gambling operators.

Under the new requirements, operators have 72 working hours to respond to a customer complaint, with the period calculated according to working days and excluding public holidays.

Should a customer fail to reach a resolution or believe that the response provided by the operator is unsatisfactory, they will be able to escalate the matter for review by the ADM.

Users of the portal must register complaints using SPID or Italy’s electronic identity card (CIE) and provide ..