Anders Dorph, director of the Danish Gambling Authority (DGA), or Spillemyndigheden, is clear about how to strengthen Denmark’s regulated market. He insists cross-border collaboration within the European Union (EU), underpinned by a unified set of regulations across the 27-member bloc, would prove beneficial both at home and abroad.
As for Denmark itself, which regulated the online gambling industry in 2012, the Scandinavian market continues to grow. Total gross gaming revenue (GGR) grew 6.7% year on year (YoY) to DKK7.8bn, or £905m at today’s exchange rate, yet that’s not without its challenges.
As illegal operators and prediction markets operate seamlessly across regulated borders, Dorph says the battle to quell the black market cannot be fought alone. From banks failing to block payments to affiliate sites and Big Tech platforming unlicensed firms’ ads, the director believes successful enforcement requires regulators banding together and input from a union.
“We’ll be much stronger together,” he explains, noting shared standards and collective pressure on Big Tech and financial institutions would go a long way to solving this ongoing problem. But it’s not just illegal operators plaguing the Danish market.
Schools are reporting under 18s are finding ways to gambling online, prompting the DGA to deliver in-person education on gambling-related harms. And with registrations to the self-exclusion platform ROFUS increasing, underneath the strong market figures lie a host of issues Dorph is keen to address.
EGR: Denmark’s total gambling market reached DKK7.8bn in GGR for 2025, a 6.7% increase from the previous year. What do you attribute that growth to?
Anders Dorph [AD]: When comparing GGR over time, the most accurate approach is to look at GGR adjusted for GDP [gross domestic product]. This way, we can see that the regulated market peaked in 2018, and that all sectors except online casino have declined compared to that period. But the growth in online casino is really difficult to explain.
We are seeing young children playing during class. They’re sitting in the back when they’re not that interested in a lesson and gambling on online casino. I’m not sure if that’s the reason for the increase; we don’t have a real good explanation for it.
EGR: In the past you have spoken about games like Roblox introducing young children to gambling behaviours. Do you think that is part of the reason why young people are gambling?
AD: We have an old DGA survey that showed there was a connection between heavy video game usage and gambling. In gaming, you see a lot more gambling-related features that have been introduced in the last couple of years, such as loot boxes – different ways of making kids get used to gambling. We can see a connection between young people who game who then start gambling.
It is troubling and something we need to focus on. For me, the right approach would be to go through the EU and work with them to create regulation in that area because if Denmark was about to attack the gaming industry, it would lose. We have to stand together firmly and internationally. When my kids were playing video games, we had to go to the shop and buy a new one every year. But now the payment method is different, with mini payments everywhere. It’s a whole new way of getting money from young kids and, of course, I’m troubled by the gambling elements in gaming.
EGR: According to H2 Gambling Capital, Denmark’s channelisation rate continues to rise year on year. In 2024, it was reported to be 91.5%, the fifth highest in Europe at the time. What do you think it currently is?
AD: That’s a very good question because the way H2 researched their figures changed during the summer and autumn 2025 and [the figures] are now really troubling. The new estimates are much lower compared to 91.5%. They changed the method because they are measuring affiliate and crypto traffic more closely now.
Right now, we are working with the Nordic countries and the Netherlands to figure out the best way of measuring the channelisation rate. We are doing so because we have doubts around some of the big assumptions H2 are making in the new model. I’m not here to give you an exact number, but I think the channelisation rate is lower than the highest numbers reported previously.
We also conducted a recent survey in Denmark about illegal gambling, which showed about 7% of the people we asked said they had tried to play on illegal sites on purpose. That was not that troubling but the players who use these sites tend to gamble more frequently. It’s an area we need to focus on, and we also need to work on how to measure it correctly.
EGR: Would you consider a 90% channelisation rate a success in Denmark?
AD: We should keep going for an even higher rate. Even though the illegal market is 10%, we still have to fight it. The idea is to make sure the legal market has a competitive advantage. As it is right now, there are a lot of European countries that are facing restrictions, and we need to focus on the conditions they are working under. We legalised Denmark to remove the black market, so we can’t keep on having new restrictions to make it harder for the legal sector.
We have to be very focused and try to give the legal market advantages. The illegal market doesn’t pay taxes. It’s the Wild West. You need to be sure players don’t develop gambling problems – and the legal market does that.
EGR: Do you think countries should work closer and potentially create one European framework?
AD: Ideally there would be standardisation and European norms because it’s a huge industry and we’d be much stronger together. I am the chair of the Gambling Regulators European Forum (GREF) and a member of the International Association of Gambling Regulators. We should work closer and stand together while also working with Big Tech companies.
While we do collaborate with Big Tech to remove illegal content from their platforms, a standardised European framework could be a way of doing it more effectively. It’s also about payment systems; the banks. There are a lot of ways to fight illegal gambling. One is to remove illegal content from the big social media platforms – Instagram, TikTok. If you can get that minimised, it will help.
If we could somehow work on the payment blocking system in Denmark – and we are talking to the banks right now – to make sure players don’t get their winnings if they gamble on an illegal site, that could be extremely interesting. Stories about players not receiving their money will definitely get people to stop searching for illegal sites.
Working together would be an advantage and that’s what we’re trying to do. It’s not easy but we are focusing on the Big Tech companies and trying to open a dialogue with them about how their systems can minimise the illegal offering on their platforms.
EGR: When you say it’s not easy, is that because some markets have different restrictions and regulations compared to others?
AD: Yes. The gambling industry is somehow seen as a small industry but a very specific one for countries because it is often used as a way of supporting different programmes, organisations or charities. Like in the US, it’s been financing the Indian tribes. It’s very hard to get a common approach and make this a harmonised arena.
But we’d be stronger if we could reach some kind of close cooperation. That is what we’re trying to do through GREF. But as it is right now, GREF is more about knowledge sharing, listening to each other and getting ideas than it is saying we want the same rules in the same countries. That’s not for GREF to do, but the EU.
EGR: Since 2012, the DGA has blocked over 600 illegal gambling sites, including the 178 the Danish court approved last June. Is this a success or a long-running game of whack-a-mole?
AD: It’s like chasing rabbits – they keep coming up. We need to be innovative to attack illegal sites because right now we use DNS blocking which you can bypass with a VPN – kids as young as 13 and 14 know how to do it. The way we are doing it is creating obstacles for the black market. Blocking does help because we can see reduced traffic after a block, but it’s not 100% effective.
That’s why we’re also working on payment blocking. We recently made an agreement with the internet service providers (ISPs) about mirror sites, so we don’t require a separate court order to shut them down if we have a court order for the original site.
It’s also very important we work on making sure our customers are aware of the licensing scheme. We created a campaign on social media telling people to only gamble on sites with our labelling schemes, and not on any other site. That’s the only way you can assure consumer protection, and that players get their money.
EGR: How do you ensure the regulated market stays attractive and competitive to players while keeping them safe?
AD: One thing that will give us strength in the fight against the illegal market is being able to block affiliate sites. It’s a new thing we are introducing to make sure you don’t have affiliate sites directing people to gamble on sites without a licence.
We also have another system where we monitor streamers, gathering evidence so we can make criminal cases against them if necessary. It’s very important we educate streamers because a lot of them don’t really know what the law is. We have called them in for meetings and told them what’s legal and what’s not legal.
That helped because most streamers don’t want to be in violation of the law. When they heard what we said, they stopped. However, you will always have somebody who can see the benefit of getting some money and introducing their followers to illegal gambling. So, there is still a lot to be done.
EGR: What do you think can be done to coax players who use illegal platforms to play with licensed operators?
AD: Campaigns. We had the labelling scheme last year to ensure people know what they’re doing. And, as I mentioned before, making sure the legal market is also in a place where it’s able to compete in a satisfying way. Over the years, we increased the knowledge about our labelling scheme, and we can see more people know about it because it has been marketed quite aggressively. Since 2012 to now, there have been four times the number of adverts. That way, people get the labelling scheme in their head.
EGR: ROFUS registrations reached 55,000 at the end of 2024. By January 2026 that figure had passed 70,000. Did you expect that trajectory? What do you think is driving the growth?
AD: The ROFUS figures always ends in two stories. One story is having so many people on ROFUS that it is a big problem. The other is having so many people on ROFUS it is a success because people know about it. It is definitely a helpful tool and I think the amount of people using it is positive. It is worrying that so many people need help to control their gambling. We can see year on year that ROFUS is growing. Is that because we are seeing an increase in serious problem gambling behaviour or is it because people know about the platform? It’s always a question that is hard to answer.
Every five years we release a survey to see how many problem gamblers Denmark has. Our last survey in 2021 showed we didn’t have an increase in serious problem gamblers but did have an increase in two other areas, according to the PGSI [Problem Gambling Severity Index] method. That was troubling for politicians to hear. For the first time, the survey also included young people under 18, and it showed there were the same amount of problem gamblers [in that age group] as people over 18. That was troubling. What we’ve been trying to change for the last four years is how can we do something about it.
One of the efforts we think is really helpful is we go to schools and talk to students. Every time a school calls us to say they have a class with gambling problems, we talk to the kids. After two hours they understand gambling is not a way to make money. Gambling is for amusement. It’s like going to the cinema; it costs money and it’s entertainment. Getting that knowledge into the heads of young people is extremely important because we can never close down the internet. We can never be North Korea. Instead, we have to make our people in Denmark more robust and more knowledgeable about what’s going on.
EGR: In February, the Netherlands Gambling Authority sent cease-and-desist letters to prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi. Are you concerned the platforms could potentially operate in Denmark?
AD: Prediction markets are already here. We see [Danes using] Polymarket and Kalshi. We don’t have figures on how many people are using those sites, but we will definitely use DNS blocking if they target the Danish market.
As it is right now, they are not meeting the criteria [to be blocked], which is they have to target the Danish market. There are different ways of showing that. For example, if players can use Danish currency, Danish payment methods or if there is an option to put money on a Danish lower football league match, which is not well known around the world – that would be targeting the market. If prediction market platforms are doing that, we would definitely try to block them and make it harder for them to engage with Danish customers.
EGR: Where do you see the Danish market in five to 10 years’ time?
AD: As a regulator, we are here to make sure gambling is not excessive. My hope is we will have a stable market. My prediction is we will not see an explosion because we are quite a mature market. We’ve been licensed since 2012. We see in countries that launched a couple of years ago that they have high channelisation because the legal market takes the players from the illegal market – then it levels out like we’ve seen in the UK. What I also hope is for there to be less problem gambling.
The post DGA director calls for far stronger cross-border collaboration first appeared on EGR Intel.
Anders Dorph tells EGR joined-up thinking across regulated markets is vital to combatting illegal operators and underage gambling, as well as cross-border threats posed by prediction markets
The post DGA director calls for far stronger cross-border collaboration first appeared on EGR Intel.