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Online sports betting sites and digital slot machine platforms have been around for a while, and we’ve seen popularity accelerate during the past decade – especially during the pandemic. Today, the iGaming market is bigger than ever.
Online casinos are built for convenience, allowing players to enjoy their favorite games wherever and whenever, from any device they choose. Players have many more options and a much easier time accessing the options they do have.
Countries in Europe are choosing vastly different approaches to the new casino landscape, with some maximizing growth opportunities and others limiting them. Others are focused on the balance of growth and safety.
Sweden is an outlier, becoming the first EU country to eliminate the option of land-based casinos. Historically, physical venues in Sweden can only be run by the state-owned company Svenska Spel. Up until recently, Sweden offered visitors four casino venues in four different cities: one each in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö, and Sundsvall.
After a new Swedish license for online operators was introduced in 2019, Sweden saw visitors decrease to the point where profitability dropped too low to justify operations. Casino Cosmopol Sundsvall closed down in 2020. For a while, things seemed relatively stable, but Swedish players continued to choose online casinos more and more often, and in 2024, Svenska Spel was forced to close two more casinos.
There was only one land-based casino left standing at the beginning of 2025 – Casino Cosmopol in the capital city of Stockholm. But later this year, the decision to close the last casino was made. The closing of Sweden’s physical venues became a complete reform of the casino industry, as the Swedish parliament decided that the state shouldn’t be permitted to run gambling operations any longer. Going forward, all Swedish casinos are online sites.
Estonia is now aiming to become the next iGaming jurisdiction of choice for operators wanting to offer online players a secure license. The online gambling tax has been cut to just 4%, making it one of the lowest in Europe and a favorable choice for operators.
The tax cut will allow Estonia to become a center for iGaming operations in the same way that jurisdictions such as Malta, Gibraltar, and the Isle of Man are today.
“This is about future-proofing Estonia’s position,” says Tanel Tein, author of the new amendment.
“We can’t attract serious international operators if we burden them with outdated taxation and complex oversight. The goal is to build a transparent, competitive, and responsible industry.”
Another European country making big regulatory changes within the iGaming industry, much in the opposite direction, is Italy. The reform allows operators to only feature a single domain, cutting down the available options for Italian players from hundreds of sites to just over 50. We also see a big price increase for licenses from around €200,000 to a whopping €7 million, eliminating smaller competitors that can’t afford the hefty tag.
“The bar is very high, and this was done on purpose,” says Quirino Mancin, partner at law firm WH Partners.
- B.E. Delmer, Gambling911.com
