Danish court approves blocking orders against 178 gambling sites
It’s the biggest request made to date by the Danish gambling regulator.
Denmark. The court at Frederiksberg has approved the Danish gambling regulator Spillemyndigheden’s request for blocking orders against 178 gambling websites. It’s the biggest round of blocking orders secured by the regulator since it started taking this kind of enforcement action in 2012.
Previously, the regulator took cases to court only once a year, but since 2024 it has brought cases before the court twice a year. In total, it has had 616 illegal gambling sites blocked since 2012.
Spillemyndigheden says that all of the sites had been offering gambling to Danes without a local licence. The regulator regularly monitors websites that offer gambling to Danes without a licence. The blocking of the sites is done through the court, which assesses whether they should be blocked.
“It is of course frustrating that illegal gambling sites continue to appear targeting Danes,” Spillemyndigheden director Anders Dorph said. “But I am very pleased that we have tools to find the sites and that we manage to get them blocked. In 2023, we took the initiative to have the sites blocked twice a year instead of once.
“This means that we can more quickly shut down access to sites that do not have a Danish licence and where consumers do not have the same protection as those gambling operators who have a licence from the Danish Gambling Authority.”
Spillemyndigheden said that it always asks an operator to stop before seeking a blocking order. If this does not happen, the regulator will contact telecommunications providers, who are asked to block access to the websites. After this, the telecommunications providers ask for the court’s word that the sites are illegal and that they must shut down access to the websites.
The Danish Gambling Authority’s warrant for blocking access to the illegal websites is done with a DNS blocker. Those who try to access a blocked website are greeted by a page with information that the site is illegal and blocked by the regulator.
A game is considered to be directed at Danish customers if one or more of the following elements are present:
- Danish language
- Danish currency
- Payment cards that only work in Denmark
- Danish customer service
- Connecting via Steam
- An offering that targets Danish players, for example, by offering bets on sports events in lower national ranks.
Danish gambling revenue rose by 11.6 per cent year-on-year in April as online casino revenue continues to drive growth in the sector. Overall, gaming revenue totalled DKK665m (€89m), up 4.7 per cent month-on-month.
According to Spillemyndigheden, online casinos generated DKK331m (€44.4m), rising by 21.4 per cent from April 2024 and reaching the highest level since the record DKK347m reported in December 2024. Slots represented 78.9 per cent of all online casino revenue, followed by blackjack (6.6 per cent) and roulette (6.4 per cent).
Sports betting revenue rose by 6.1 per cent year-on-year to DKK207m, with over 70 per cent coming from mobile platforms, 15 per cent from desktop and 14.2 per cent from betting shops.
