Industry roundup: week ending 25 September 2026

A busy week for licensing and compliance teams, with the Dutch regulator completing its first round of online licence renewals, Malta setting out how it expects licensees to govern artificial intelligence, and regulators in Australia and the UK acting on self-exclusion failures and unlicensed operations. All of the stories below were reported by iGaming Business, and each headline links through to the original article.

Netherlands: KSA renews its first eight online licences

The Dutch gambling authority, Kansspelautoriteit, has reissued eight online gambling licences for a further five years, running from 1 October 2026 to 30 September 2031. The renewals cover TOTO Online, Holland Casino, Play North (Kansino), FPO Nederland (FairPlay Casino), Bingoal Nederland, Hillside (New Media Malta) for Bet365, NSUS Malta for GG Poker, and Betent (Betcity). No new operators were approved in this round, and two of the original 2021 licensees, LiveScore and Tombola, had already left the market in 2024. The regulator applied noticeably firmer scrutiny this time: applicants with a history of compliance breaches were required to explain what they had learned and what they had corrected, and every applicant had to submit an exit plan describing how it would wind operations down if a licence were refused or withdrawn.

What this means for operators: renewal is no longer a formality anywhere with a maturing regime, so treat remediation records and a documented wind-down plan as standing licensing assets rather than documents assembled at the last minute.

Read the original article on iGaming Business

Malta: MGA publishes a voluntary AI charter for the sector

The Malta Gaming Authority, working with the Malta Digital Innovation Authority, has issued an AI Gaming Charter offering sector-specific guidance on responsible use of artificial intelligence. The charter is voluntary and creates no new legal obligations, but it is designed to sit alongside the EU AI Act and data protection law. It covers transparency, so that players can tell when they are dealing with an AI system, human oversight of automated decisions, data governance, fairness and system robustness, and it reaches applications from customer-facing chatbots to fraud detection and anti-money laundering tools. Practical expectations include keeping an inventory of AI systems in use, identifying whether the licensee is a provider or a deployer of each one, disclosing AI-generated content, logging decisions in higher-risk systems with clear escalation routes, and documenting where training data came from.

What this means for operators: the charter is a reasonable template for a licensee's own AI policy, and building the systems inventory now will shorten the work when the EU AI Act obligations bite in earnest.

Read the original article on iGaming Business

Brazil: industry body warns a casino ban would hand the market to offshore sites

ANJL, the Brazilian national association of games and lotteries, has published a study arguing that prohibiting online casino games for licensed betting operators would sharply expand the illegal market. The association puts the unlicensed share at 41% at present and estimates it could reach 82% if licensed casino play were banned, with lost annual tax revenue of between BRL3.6 billion and BRL7.4 billion. Its monitoring found an average of 13.7 new clandestine sites registered each day between June and August 2026, and 6,409 illegal betting domains identified in the week of 11 to 18 September. More than 25 million bettors are registered with licensed platforms. The study also notes that 55.8% of offshore sites route traffic through distribution networks that conceal the original hosting, and that 98.3% of the illegal domains avoid the .br extension.

What this means for operators: anyone holding or pursuing a Brazilian licence should be modelling a casino-restricted scenario now, including the revenue mix, marketing plan and product roadmap that would follow.

Read the original article on iGaming Business

Australia: ACMA secures an enforceable undertaking from Palmerbet

The Australian Communications and Media Authority has accepted an 18-month court-enforceable undertaking from Palmerbet after the operator failed to close the account of a customer who had registered with BetStop, the national self-exclusion register, in September 2023. The account stayed open until February 2025. The regulator found that incorrect customer details submitted to the register, including a shortened first name and an inaccurate date of birth, produced negative matches that prevented closure, and that identity verification procedures had not been applied consistently to older accounts. ACMA identified 18 contraventions relating to accepting bets from a registered person, on 18 occasions between December 2024 and February 2025, and 535 contraventions relating to the delay in closing the account. Under the undertaking, Palmerbet must commission an independent review of its BetStop compliance systems and refund the customer's deposits for the period. ACMA member Carolyn Lidgerwood said providers "must have robust systems in place".

What this means for operators: the failure here was data quality rather than intent, so it is worth testing how accurately your own registration and verification records are passed to any exclusion register, and re-checking legacy accounts created before current standards applied.

Read the original article on iGaming Business

UK: cash and equipment seized in Manchester unlicensed gambling raids

Greater Manchester Police, the Gambling Commission and Manchester City Council's licensing team executed four warrants in the Deansgate area overnight on 23 September, seizing more than £20,000 in cash under the Proceeds of Crime Act along with gambling tables, mobile devices and account records. Four people were held: one man on suspicion of money laundering and of operating unlicensed gambling facilities, one man on suspicion of licensing offences relating to a late-night takeaway, and two women on suspicion of immigration offences. Sue Young, the Gambling Commission's executive director of operations, linked unlicensed operators to wider criminal activity and to the harm done to legitimate regulated businesses.

What this means for operators: joint enforcement between the Commission, police and local licensing teams continues to broaden, which strengthens the case for licensed operators to report suspected illegal competitors through formal channels rather than absorbing the loss.

Read the original article on iGaming Business

UK: machine gaming duty increase would fall hardest on Rank

Analysis from Deutsche Bank, reported this week, considers the effect of a possible increase in UK machine gaming duty from 20% to 40%, a measure recommended to the Treasury by the Social Market Foundation. On the bank's figures, the gaming machine sector generates around £2.7 billion in gross gaming yield, and Rank Group would be the most exposed, facing roughly £35 million in additional duty, equivalent to a substantial share of its forecast earnings and putting the viability of a number of venues in question. Entain is estimated to face about £100 million in extra annual cost before mitigation and has warned that stakes could migrate to the black market, while the effect on Flutter would be under 1% of group earnings. Rank said it continues to engage directly with the Treasury and other government departments on the impact of tax increases.

What this means for operators: land-based and multi-channel businesses should be preparing duty-sensitivity models and an evidenced submission now, because the case against a rise is far more persuasive with venue-level numbers attached.

Read the original article on iGaming Business

The week in short

• Licensing: the Dutch renewal round sets a higher evidential bar, with exit plans now part of the application.
• Governance: Malta's AI charter gives licensees a sector-specific reference point ahead of wider AI regulation.
• Market design: Brazil's online casino question is now the single largest variable in that market's outlook.
• Enforcement: self-exclusion data accuracy and unlicensed operations both drew regulatory action this week.
• Taxation: UK machine gaming duty remains a live commercial risk for retail-weighted operators.

All stories above are drawn from reporting by iGaming Business. If any of this touches your licensing position, whether that is a renewal falling due, a new market application or a compliance framework that needs reviewing, we would be glad to talk it through. Get in touch with iGaming Licensing to discuss your plans.