What Happens to iGaming When the Rules of the Game Shift

Last updated: October 26, 2026. Operator counts are based on the latest available snapshots, which don't match the publication date in every country. Re-check terms and product availability before launch.

The Brazilian soap opera looks set for a second season, this time in the courts. In September 2026, the country's authorities banned online betting and casinos, and from October 6, previously licensed platforms were required to cease operations. Companies that had only recently bought licenses, opened offices, hired staff, and invested in promotion now face the need to wind down their businesses. The fate of the temporary measure depends on parliamentary procedure and court proceedings, but the core conflict is already obvious: the state first invited the industry to legalize, then radically changed the terms of engagement.

While Brazil prepares for the next chapter, 3S.INFO takes a look at other countries where the initial promises of transparency, player protection, and investment appeal have also run into new political and economic decisions.

Six Countries, Six Versions of One Conflict

Gambling regulation usually starts with clear goals. The state wants to bring the business out of the shadows, protect players, control money flows, and collect taxes. Operators are offered licenses, requirements are set for products and advertising, and in return they get the chance to work legally and plan investments.

But then the original rules change. Somewhere taxes rise, somewhere promotion opportunities shrink, additional restrictions are introduced, or financial controls get tighter. Each measure on its own can be justified by the public interest. Yet their combined effect is far from always matching the original expectations.

Peru has achieved notable legalization results but has already faced a proposal to raise the tax on remote betting fivefold. Colombia was one of the first in Latin America to introduce online licensing, yet the number of digital market participants remains small, and the tax burden is increasing.

The Netherlands can already assess the results of its tax reform: the additional revenue came in well below forecasts, and a significant share of the gaming result comes from the illegal segment. The UK is deliberately shifting the tax burden between digital and land-based products, and the largest companies are starting to revise their costs.

Russia has been raising mandatory payments on bookmakers for several years, even as market growth slows and profitability declines. Ukraine achieved a multiple increase in tax revenue, but a significant role was played by investigations, the cancellation of benefits, and tighter controls, the quality of which was later criticized by a state audit.

There's one more metric worth considering: how many independent licensed companies actually remain in each market?

The number of licenses alone doesn't prove the effectiveness of regulation, but it helps gauge competition and barriers to entry. That said, these figures need to be compared carefully: some countries publish the number of legal entities, others the number of permits or gaming platforms.

• The iGaming market reviews section on 3S.INFO is a key resource with current, reliable information on how the industry is developing across different countries. It brings together detailed analytical material on gambling markets from Western Europe to Latin America: trend analysis, legislative changes, traffic specifics, and practical strategies for affiliates and media buyers.

Peru: Successful Legalization Under Threat From a New Tax

Peru can be called one of the more interesting examples of gambling formalization in Latin America. After launching regulation of online games and remote betting, the state managed to attract dozens of platforms, register suppliers, and expand the network of legal betting shops.

By the end of 2025, Peru's Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism (MINCETUR) reported 54 authorized online platforms and 320 registered suppliers. As of October 23, 2026, the available extract from the MINCETUR register listed 49 companies holding permits and 51 authorized domains. At the same time, some permits had been temporarily suspended, so the number of entries in the register can't be equated with the number of fully functioning operators.

For a relatively young regulated market, that's a notable number of participants. Especially when compared with Colombia, where licensing has existed far longer but the number of online operators is substantially smaller.

The financial results of legalization also looked convincing. From January to November 2025, tax revenue from remote sports betting came to 117.4 million soles, with another 91.4 million from online games. Land-based slot machines brought in 197.5 million soles over the same period, and casinos 13.1 million.

But figures like these can't be used to directly compare the size of the online and offline markets. The tax regimes differ, and some of the turnover may not show up in official statistics. What matters more is something else: the state did create a working system that attracted participants and started generating money.

And now there's discussion of raising the ISC (Impuesto Selectivo al Consumo), the selective consumption tax, from 1% to 5% for online games and remote betting.

What's distinctive about the initiative is its tax base: the levy is calculated on the value of bets, not on GGR (Gross Gaming Revenue) — the difference between bets accepted and winnings paid out.

For the bookmaking business, this is a fundamental difference.

Suppose an operator accepts €100 million in bets and pays out €93 million in winnings. Its GGR comes to €7 million. At a 1% tax on turnover, the obligation would be €1 million; at a 5% rate, it's already €5 million. That's more than 71% of GGR from a single tax, before other payments and operating costs.

The example is hypothetical, but it shows how painful turnover-based taxation can be for a business with thin margins.

The increase remains a legislative proposal for now. But the way the question is framed is telling. The state brought the business into the regulated sector relatively recently, got operators and suppliers registered, and now is considering a measure capable of substantially changing the economics of those very companies.

To offset the new costs, bookmakers may tighten their odds, cut bonus programs, revise affiliate commissions, and reduce marketing investment. As a result, a risk familiar from other regulated markets emerges: the legal product becomes less attractive, while unlicensed sites retain the ability to offer terms that law-abiding companies can't match.

At the same time, illegal competition in Peru is already a real problem. In October 2026, MINCETUR reported blocking another 50 illegal online platforms, bringing the total number of blocked resources to 86.

Peru isn't yet showing a regulatory failure. On the contrary, the main danger is that the new tax decision could put the legalization results already achieved at risk.

• Peru has been posting some of the most dynamic online gambling growth rates in Latin America for several years. In the review "How to Direct Traffic to Gambling and Betting in Peru," we break down in detail every aspect that matters to affiliates: the legal framework and the regulator's powers, the leading brands, promotion tools, and the specifics of working with the audience.

Colombia: The Laws Have Been Around for Years, but How Many Companies Have They Attracted?

Colombia was one of the pioneers of online regulation in Latin America. But years of licensing experience don't automatically mean the country has managed to build a developed, competitive digital market.

The country has thousands of small land-based gaming establishments with tens of thousands of machines. Against that backdrop, the online segment is represented by a relatively limited number of companies.

According to official Coljuegos data from May 26, 2026, there were 15 authorized online operators in the country. That's the number the regulator counted after a new participant, MrYoker, appeared.

Notably, in February 2024, Coljuegos also reported 15 operators. The lineup of participants has changed over that time, so this doesn't necessarily mean there's no competition. But years of licensing haven't led to a noticeable quantitative expansion of the market.

That's an interesting contrast with Peru: a younger regulated market managed to attract substantially more companies.

However, the number of operators is only part of the picture. Colombia's online business generates significant budget revenue, but that doesn't prove the digital market exceeds the land-based one in actual size.

Tax revenue doesn't equal turnover or the market's GGR. Online transactions are easier to track, the tax obligations of different formats are calculated differently, and illegal land-based establishments and potentially under-recorded operations create additional distortions.

An objective comparison would require comparable data on betting turnover, GGR, active players, and the actual tax burden. Including estimates of the unrecorded segment.

In 2026, the situation got more complicated with another fiscal decision. As part of emergency budget measures, the state introduced an additional 16% consumption tax on online gambling, with its base defined through GGR.

In its justification, the authorities cited, among other things, the need to eliminate tax inequality between digital and land-based products. But equal tax rates don't yet mean equal commercial conditions.

An online operator and a land-based establishment have different cost structures, customer acquisition tools, and competitive environments. An additional tax can affect their profitability and investment capacity differently.

Here a question arises that's almost never discussed in the context of formal legalization: if the market has existed for years but the number of operators remains small, how much does the current system actually encourage new companies to enter?

Fifteen operators on their own don't prove a regulatory failure. The market may be highly competitive among them. But drawing that conclusion requires data on GGR concentration, the shares of the largest brands, and investment dynamics.

For now, Colombia shows a narrower problem: the state successfully collects money from licensed digital companies while continuing to change their tax obligations.

Unlike Peru, where the result of relatively recent formalization may suffer, Colombia risks locking in a model where the digital market exists legally but remains hard to enter for new participants.

• The iGaming market in Colombia is growing steadily: local brands are increasingly obtaining licenses, international players are arriving, and affiliate programs are launching RevShare and CPA. The review offers useful information for affiliates looking for a stable GEO and for webmasters who care about offers with regular payouts and legality. We cover everything from licenses and taxes to traffic strategies and working approaches, with no unnecessary theory, just practice.

Netherlands: Higher Taxes, Fewer Operators

In the Netherlands, the consequences of regulatory changes can already be compared against actual market results.

After the launch of licensed online gambling in 2021, the authorities consistently restricted advertising, tightened player protection requirements, and raised taxes.

At the end of 2023, the regulator Kansspelautoriteit (Ksa) counted 31 active online licenses; by the end of 2025, there were 27. In the fall of 2026, the market was going through the renewal of the first five-year permits, so the final number of active operators as of the publication date needs to be verified against the current Ksa register.

The drop from 31 to 27 licenses doesn't by itself prove that companies left specifically because of taxes. Commercial results, regulatory requirements, or corporate changes could have influenced the decisions. Still, the trend deserves attention.

Since January 2025, the gambling tax rate has risen from 30.5% to 34.2%, and from January 2026, to 37.8%. What's more, the main rate applies not only to online operators but also to land-based casinos and slot machines.

The state expected to collect an additional €108 million in 2025 and €216 million in 2026. But a monitoring report published in the summer of 2026 showed far more modest results: the actual increase in revenue in 2025 came to about €2 million, and the forecast for the additional effect in 2026 was cut to €57 million.

There are several reasons. The market was hit simultaneously by responsible gambling requirements, restrictions on promotion, and a change in the tax burden. So attributing the entire effect to a single tax rate would be wrong.

But the main conclusion stands: the tax increase didn't bring the expected boost in budget revenue.

What's more, GGR in the legal online segment in the second half of 2025 came to about €602 million, roughly 18% less than in the comparable period a year earlier.

A decline in GGR doesn't by itself mean a policy failure. If players are losing less thanks to responsible gambling tools, that may be consistent with the goals of regulation.

However, the statistics on the illegal sector force a broader look at the situation.

According to the Ksa's estimate, about 91% of online players use only licensed sites. But the legal segment accounts for only about 53% of the market's estimated money result.

In other words, the vast majority of players stay on legal sites, yet a significant share of their combined losses goes to unlicensed platforms.

That doesn't mean nearly half of all players have moved offshore. More likely, users of illegal sites may be losing substantially more. And this is exactly where the conflict arises between player protection and the competitiveness of licensed products.

The state restricts legal operators to protect consumers, but the most vulnerable audience may go looking for sites where such restrictions don't exist.

Against this backdrop, the shrinking number of licenses becomes another reason to assess the market's structure. If operators have to withstand high taxes, expensive compliance, and promotion restrictions, it may be harder for new companies to enter the market and for existing ones to stay profitable.

Unlike Peru, where the effects of the fivefold tax increase are still a forecast, the Netherlands is already showing a combination of falling legal GGR, missed budget expectations, and a declining number of online licenses. But each regulatory decision's contribution to these results still requires separate analysis.

• In 2026, the Netherlands is no longer an easy GEO to enter, but a mature market with strict regulation that nonetheless remains profitable: online gambling here continues to grow despite the tightening of the rules.

UK: A Large Market Where the Terms of Competition Are Gradually Shifting

The UK has taken a different approach to taxation. The state isn't simply raising the overall gambling burden; it's deliberately separating digital and land-based products.

From April 1, 2026, the Remote Gaming Duty rate for online casinos rose from 21% to 40%. From April 2027, most remote betting faces an increase from 15% to 25%.

At the same time, bets on British horse racing keep a separate regime, bets through self-service terminals in licensed venues don't fall under the new higher rate, and the tax on land-based bingo has been abolished.

In other words, the government is changing the relative tax appeal of individual gambling products.

One of the authorities' arguments is that digital operators carry lower physical infrastructure costs than land-based establishments. An additional justification is the gambling harm risks associated with certain online products.

At first glance, that logic is understandable. An online casino doesn't need thousands of square meters of gaming floors and a large service staff.

But the digital business has its own cost structure: technology, licensing, compliance, payments, fraud prevention, marketing, and player acquisition. And on competitive markets, acquisition costs can make up a substantial share of expenses.

According to the Gambling Commission, as of March 31, 2026, there were 2,154 licensed gambling operators in the UK, down from about 2,179 a year earlier.

That's the largest market by number of licensed participants among the countries under review, but the figure needs an important caveat. It covers the entire industry, including the land-based segment, and isn't equivalent to the number of companies operating exclusively online.

To assess the impact of the tax reform, you need to track separately the number of remote B2C license holders, changes in the operator mix, and GGY concentration — gross gaming yield in UK reporting.

The roughly 1% decline in the total number of licensed companies can't by itself be taken as proof of tax pressure. Especially since this statistic covers the period before the Remote Gaming Duty increase.

But the corporate consequences of the reform are already becoming noticeable.

In October 2026, reports emerged of plans by Flutter to cut up to 1,400 jobs in the UK and Ireland amid the changing tax conditions.

It's telling that this is one of the largest international gambling groups, with its own technology, recognizable brands, and the ability to move capital between markets.

If even a business like that is revisiting its cost structure, smaller operators have to prepare for even harder decisions.

But staff cuts don't mean the whole industry has become unprofitable. Large companies may be combining tax optimization with other restructuring programs. The real results will become clearer after full statistics are published for the period under the new rates.

The UK example is also interesting because tax increases can affect the market through more than just company closures. Operators can cut affiliate programs, renegotiate contracts with technology suppliers, reduce marketing budgets, and change product terms.

As a result, the number of licensed companies may stay relatively stable, but competition among them will weaken. It's harder for new brands to attract an audience, and for smaller operators to sustain the same economics as large groups.

Here a difference from the Netherlands emerges. There, there's already a measurable gap between tax expectations and the outcome. In the UK, it's too early to assess the reform's fiscal effectiveness, but the first signs of cost redistribution within the industry are already visible.

• The 3S.INFO review gives a general picture of the UK market: strict rules, a transparent licensing structure, high requirements for operators, and a long history of online gambling development. For an affiliate, it's not the easiest GEO, but an extremely instructive one: once you understand the local regulation, licensing, and economics, you'll find it far easier to assess the risks and prospects of iGaming markets in other countries.

Russia: Mandatory Payments Are Rising, but the Market Is No Longer Growing at the Same Pace

The Russian model is fundamentally different from the Western European one. Legal online casinos are banned in the country, so digital gambling is represented primarily by licensed betting. Land-based casinos and slot machines operate in designated gambling zones.

As of October 2026, industry directories count 17 bookmaking companies with licenses to accept interactive bets. At the same time, individual operators may temporarily not be accepting bets. For example, a September reconciliation of one register indicated 16 companies that were actually taking bets out of 17 listed.

So the number of licensed participants needs to be distinguished from the number of active bookmaker brands and the total number of Federal Tax Service licenses, which may also cover other types of activity.

For a market where trillions of rubles in bets pass through, the number of operators is relatively small. But comparing it directly with the UK, where a far broader range of gambling activity is counted, would be incorrect.

Since 2022, the state has been gradually increasing the financial burden on bookmakers. Target contributions for sports development rose from 1.5% to 2% in 2024 and to 2.25% from January 2026. A further increase to 2.5% is planned for 2028.

At the same time, from January 2026, the tax system itself changed. For bookmaking companies, a gambling business tax of 7% on the difference between bets accepted and winnings paid out was introduced, along with a corporate profit tax.

As a consequence, the state is using several mechanisms at once to extract funds from legal betting. But target contributions, the gaming revenue tax, and the profit tax have different bases, so simply adding up their percentage rates would be a mistake.

The first few years showed strong numbers.

According to the Unified Gambling Regulator (ERAI), bookmakers' target contributions for sports development came to 19.1 billion rubles in 2023, 35.3 billion in 2024, and about 38 billion in 2025.

But behind the rising payments lies a less optimistic operator economics.

In 2024, according to a Bookmakers' Rating study, legal market turnover grew by about 42%, to 4.7 trillion rubles. At the same time, the companies' combined net profit fell by 18.5%, to 92.7 billion rubles. In 2025, according to industry estimates based on financial statements, profit continued to decline, to roughly 75 billion rubles.

An important nuance: these results cover the period before the 2026 tax reform and can't serve as proof of its consequences.

At the same time, market growth slowed. After the volume of accepted funds grew by about 40% in 2024, ERAI recorded growth of only 8.4% in 2025. And in the first quarter of 2026, industry sources reported a slight year-on-year decline in volumes.

The reasons aren't necessarily tied solely to taxes. The dynamics are shaped by the sports calendar, consumer spending, inflation, competition, and the cost of acquiring players.

But the overall conflict is obvious: mandatory payments to the state are rising, while operator profitability and market growth rates are already under pressure.

It's especially interesting to compare the Russian situation with the British one. In both countries, the financial burden is rising on a relatively concentrated business, but the ultimate consequences can spread across the entire industry: from sports clubs and media outlets to affiliates and technology suppliers.

At the same time, Russia's land-based industry follows a different model.

Since 2026, casinos in gambling zones have paid a fixed tax of 250,000 rubles per gaming table and 15,000 rubles per machine per month. Unlike bookmakers, this tax doesn't depend directly on GGR.

Attendance at Russian gambling zones has generally grown in recent years, though certain periods of 2026 showed a decline in tourist flow. So claiming that the offline segment faces the same pressure as betting would be premature for now.

But there's another feature of the Russian market: a relatively small number of large bookmakers can concentrate significant turnover. Even if the number of operators stays the same after the tax reform, the redistribution of players among them could increase market concentration.

The 2026 reform will be a test of how sustainable the model was, in which state revenue grew alongside declining business profitability.

Ukraine: Taxes Rose Tenfold, but the Number of Operators Remains Small

Ukraine's gambling market is harder to analyze than the others, because regulatory changes took place against the backdrop of full-scale war, emergency economic measures, and a public conflict over gambling addiction.

Legalization of gambling began in 2020. The state expected to bring the industry out of the shadows, attract investment, and secure additional tax revenue.

In 2022, gambling companies were temporarily allowed to use a simplified tax system with a 2% rate. But in February 2023, that option was abolished.

At the same time, investigations into gambling companies' financial operations intensified, including those related to miscoding — the substitution of payment purpose codes, which made it possible to disguise gambling transactions as other operations.

The tax statistics looked impressive. In 2022, the industry transferred about 720 million hryvnias to the budget, in 2023 — 10.4 billion, in 2024 — 17.1 billion. In 2025, revenue practically stabilized at around 17 billion hryvnias.

At first glance, the state achieved enormous success in formalizing the business.

But the growth in tax revenue doesn't mean a comparable growth in the market itself. The abolition of benefits, tighter financial controls, and law enforcement actions played a significant role.

Back in June 2023, the Bureau of Economic Security (BEB) reported that over the first five months of the year, online operators had paid more than 2.2 billion hryvnias in taxes, against less than 550 million for all of 2022 in the comparable segment. The agency directly linked the result to its investigations.

Individual companies faced audits, with accounts and corporate rights frozen, and some industry participants ran into sanctions and had to cease operations.

Of course, combating tax evasion and illegal financial schemes is a legitimate state task. The mere fact of an investigation doesn't prove that the prosecution was unjustified.

Yet the quality of enforcement matters no less than the volume of funds collected.

In July 2025, Ukraine's Accounting Chamber published an audit of state gambling policy for 2021–2024. According to the report, no more than 0.9% of the amounts additionally assessed by the tax authorities actually reached the budget, and 94% of those assessments were overturned by the courts.

These figures don't mean that 94% of all investigations were found to be unlawful. The point is specifically about tax assessments. But such results raise serious questions about the quality of tax administration.

And here a particularly interesting contradiction emerges.

The state was showing multiple-fold growth in tax revenue, but its own audit found that a significant share of the additional tax claims didn't hold up in court.

At the same time, the structure of the industry itself was changing substantially.

According to official government data as of January 1, 2026, Ukraine had 34 licensed gambling organizers. Of these, 20 held online casino licenses, three held betting licenses, and two held online poker licenses. In the land-based segment, four organizers held casino licenses and ten held slot hall licenses.

Some companies held multiple licenses, so the figures for individual categories can't be summed up. This is also the last official snapshot published, not a confirmed count of active operators as of October 23, 2026.

For a country that legalized gambling several years earlier, the number of participants is relatively small. But drawing a conclusion about regulatory failure from this, without analyzing the economic conditions and the consequences of the war, would be wrong.

In 2024, the authorities sharply tightened advertising restrictions and player protection requirements. The gambling issue became especially sensitive because of the addiction problem among military personnel.

In 2025, the former regulator KRAIL was replaced by the PlayCity agency, and in 2026, the rollout of a state online transaction monitoring system began.

It's telling that a full-fledged digital turnover control system only appeared several years after legalization began. Before that, the state was already issuing licenses, collecting taxes, and running investigations without a unified monitoring infrastructure.

Meanwhile, the illegal segment remains significant. PlayCity has reported blocking thousands of sites operating without licenses. Of course, the number of blocked domains can't be equated with the number of illegal operators, but the scale of the problem is obvious.

Here Ukraine differs from both Russia and the Netherlands.

In Russia, the state gradually increased mandatory payments amid the growth of legal betting. In the Netherlands, the tax increase didn't bring the expected additional revenue. In Ukraine, revenue really did grow many times over, but tax and enforcement measures played a significant role, and the effectiveness of some of their elements turned out to be questionable.

The Ukrainian example shows why a state's financial results and the quality of regulation can be two completely different stories.

Six Markets: How Many Companies Remain in the Legal Segment

The latest confirmed snapshots available as of October 23, 2026

This table isn't a competition ranking. We're comparing figures with different scopes, since regulators publish different kinds of data. But it does reveal an important pattern: having a licensing system doesn't by itself guarantee a large number of participants.

Here the number of operators becomes another criterion for assessing state policy. If a market was legalized long ago but few new companies appear, the reasons need to be established. It could be limited commercial potential, high concentration, difficulty of licensing, the tax burden, or a lack of attractive conditions for investment.

What's most interesting, though, is comparing the number of companies with their market shares. Two markets with the same number of operators can differ fundamentally in their level of competition. In one, ten companies distribute GGR relatively evenly; in the other, two leaders control almost all the revenue.

So to determine a market's maturity, you need to assess not just the number of active licenses but also business concentration, the arrival of new participants, company exits, and the dynamics of their financial results.

Who Ultimately Pays for the New Rules

Tax reforms have a consequence that often stays outside the public debate. The additional burden on operators is rarely limited to a decline in their shareholders' profits.

When a company can't fully offset the new costs out of its own margin, it revisits the economics of the business: advertising budgets, bonuses, affiliate commissions, technology purchases, headcount, and product strategy.

Large international groups can spread costs across several markets or acquire weakened competitors. For local operators dependent on a single GEO, the room to maneuver is considerably smaller.

Affiliates and B2B providers are especially vulnerable. They invest in local products, certification, SEO, content, and audience, but they don't take part in regulatory decisions. When an operator cuts marketing or ceases operations, the assets a partner has built up can sharply lose commercial value.

Consolidation is possible even without mass license revocations. If the largest brands increase their share of GGR at the expense of smaller competitors, the market becomes more concentrated, even though the number of permits barely changes.

There's another potential problem, too: the illegal sector.

If licensed companies cut bonuses, tighten their odds, or restrict access to products, offshore sites may gain an additional edge. This isn't the inevitable result of every tax increase: much depends on the effectiveness of blocking, payment controls, and the appeal of the legal offering.

However, the Netherlands already shows why states need to measure not only the number of players using licensed sites, but also the distribution of their monetary losses.

When the State Should Revisit Its Own Decisions

The problem with the markets examined here isn't tightening regulation as such. Gambling carries real risks of addiction, financial loss, and operator misconduct. The state has the right to restrict advertising, raise taxes, and impose additional requirements in the public interest.

But every decision should have measurable goals and mechanisms for assessing its consequences.

If a rate increase brings in far less additional money than projected, the question is why the tax base shrank. If revenue growth comes with a mass overturning of additional assessments by the courts, the quality of administration needs to be assessed. If a significant share of the gaming result comes from illegal sites, it's important to understand why existing measures aren't keeping that audience inside the controlled sector.

And finally, if the number of licensed operators is shrinking or the market isn't attracting new participants, it's worth assessing whether the tax burden and compliance requirements have become an excessive barrier to entry.

By the same token, business can't expect legislation to stay absolutely unchanged either. A license grants the right to operate under the rules in force, not a guarantee of the same tax rates forever.

Even so, there's a fundamental difference between consistent reform and constant revision of the economic terms.

Regulatory predictability isn't about the absence of changes; it's about clear grounds, timelines, and mechanisms for making them.

That kind of predictability is what lets companies plan investments, and lets the state count on a long-term return from the legal industry.

In Place of a Conclusion: Who Will Be First to Fix Their Own Mistakes?

Peru has yet to decide how far it can raise the tax burden without undermining a system it only recently created. Colombia has yet to show that years of licensing can deliver not just budget revenue but the development of a competitive digital market.

The Netherlands already has to square its tax expectations with actual results and assess player losses on illegal sites. The UK has yet to work out how much of the additional burden businesses can bear without cutting investment and jobs.

Russia will be assessing the consequences of its new tax model against the backdrop of a slowing betting market. Ukraine has to keep reforming its control system while addressing the problems its own state audit has exposed.

These countries have no single recipe, while their starting conditions are too different for simple comparisons. But there's a common criterion: is the state ready to correct its own decisions when the results start to contradict its original goals?

Bringing gambling out of the shadows is only the first stage of regulation. It's far harder to build a system in which legal businesses are better off staying legal, new companies can compete, the state gets predictable revenue, and players are genuinely protected.

Where each further tax increase requires sacrificing the other objectives, the issue may no longer be the industry but the regulatory framework itself.