The offshore segment gains ground in European iGaming
Every time a European country squeezed regulated gambling in the first half of 2026, the result was the same: the offshore segment ended up taking a larger portion of revenue. So reflects the tracking by the analytics firm Blask, which measured how channelisation weakened, that is the part of the market remaining in the hands of licensed brands, in the four countries that hardened the rules, whether by tax or advertising route. The monitoring combines demand indicators based on normalised search data, each brand's share and a projection of the revenue it should capture according to its presence.
The pattern repeated with nuances in the three markets that raised taxes. In Latvia, where the online gaming rate climbed from 12 to 15 per cent of gross revenue on 1 January, total demand held stable but the growth was taken by unregulated operators, and the offshore portion of projected revenue gained 2.2 percentage points between December 2025 and June 2026. In the Netherlands, with a rate that scaled from 30.5 to 37.8 per cent, demand fell sharply at the start of the year and then recovered, but in that rebound the offshore part of the demand index went from 13.2 per cent in February to 15.3 per cent in June, while the offshore portion of projected revenue approached 38 per cent.
The United Kingdom completed the trio with a 19-point jump in the tax on online casinos from 1 April, to 40 per cent. There offshore demand grew in step with the measure, hit its peak in May and then returned to previous values, although the distribution of projected revenue leaned much more toward the unregulated, a blow to the economy of the licensed sector even though the increase reached only online casinos.
The Croatian case was different because the pressure did not come from taxes, which held, but from advertising. Since 1 January, the country bans gaming ads between 6 and 23 hours on internet, television, radio and electronic publications, completely bans print and outdoor advertising and prevents celebrities and influencers from taking part in promotions. The market lost demand almost month by month and in June stood around 23 per cent below December, with a drop that hit licensed brands, whose demand fell 24 per cent while offshore climbed 35 per cent, so the offshore share of the index went from 2.5 to 4.5 per cent.
The Croatian advertising restriction also left an internal concentration effect. The country's five main brands, all licensed, gained ground at the start of the year, and the top two, SuperSport and Hrvatska Lutrija, raised their combined portion from 52.6 per cent in December to 57.5 per cent in January, closing June at 54.6 per cent. At the other end, the rest of the regulated brands lost share, the sign that the smaller ones suffered the new rules the most. Adding all the markets, three raised taxes and one restricted advertising, and in all four the offshore portion of projected revenue ended up growing.
Tags: European iGaming markets, offshore segment, gambling tax increases, advertising restrictions