What’s behind Poland’s gambling influencer crackdown?

Poland has entered its most assertive phase yet in the fight against illegal online casinos, with law-enforcement agencies, the Ministry of Finance and the Financial Supervision Authority coordinating actions in a way not seen before.

The state has long relied on tools such as domain blacklists and strict advertising restrictions under Poland’s Gambling Act, yet these methods were never sufficient to keep pace with a digital ecosystem capable of regenerating itself faster than regulators could react.

In recent days the enforcement landscape has shifted visibly through coordinated early-morning police raids targeting influencers who actively promoted offshore casinos. This is the first operation of such scale directed at the social media layer of the grey market and it sets the tone for a broader transformation of how Poland responds to illicit online gambling.

By expanding enforcement beyond Poland’s gambling operators and their websites and into promotional and financial channels, the authorities are moving closer to the model adopted in several other European jurisdictions, where tackling the grey market is increasingly seen as a systemic challenge that touches technology, finance, media and consumer protection all at once.

Influencer marketing crackdown

The growing reliance of unlicensed operators on influencer-driven promotion has played a decisive role in the escalation of enforcement in Poland. For years offshore brands blended classic web advertising, purchased through foreign networks beyond the reach of Polish regulators, with a rising wave of influencer marketing across Kick, YouTube, TikTok, Twitch and comparable platforms.

Both channels operated simultaneously and created a mutually reinforcing flow of traffic directed at illegal casinos. This dual structure became particularly resilient because influencers added something the traditional advertising layer lacked, namely a perception of authenticity and immediacy that translated into high engagement from younger audiences.

The long-acknowledged weaknesses of the enforcement toolkit made this even more effective. Domain blocking could be bypassed within minutes through mirror sites and rotating URLs. Anti-promotional provisions were difficult to enforce when the marketing originated on global platforms with no operational presence in Poland.

Against this backdrop, the arrests of high-profile streamers represent more than a symbolic gesture to Poland’s gambling sector. They signal a structural reorientation in which the authorities treat the social media layer not as a peripheral marketing challenge but as a core component of the illegal casino infrastructure that must be addressed with the same seriousness as the operators themselves.

KNF forces payment shutdown

The financial dimension of the crackdown has intensified with equal force. The Financial Supervision Authority has moved from general guidance to direct supervisory pressure by issuing a sector-wide warning to payment service providers.

The communication demands immediate verification of whether PSPs facilitate transactions linked to unlicensed casinos and instructs them to discontinue such activity without delay. The message marks a shift in expectations placed on the financial sector.

Poland’s gambling-related payment flows are now explicitly framed within the context of anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorist-financing obligations, which means that PSPs, banks and fintechs must treat these transactions as high-risk financial activity rather than mere commercial processing.

The market reaction has been rapid. Several payment methods including BLIK began disappearing from offshore casino sites shortly after the correspondence, disrupting both deposits and withdrawals and breaking parts of the payment chains that previously allowed Polish users to move funds in and out of illegal platforms with almost no friction.

For offshore operators this undermines one of the most critical pillars of their business model. For the authorities it demonstrates that financial supervision can be used as a powerful instrument to reduce the operational viability of unlicensed gambling.

Coordinated regulatory architecture

These developments are supported by deeper structural changes within the regulatory administration. The creation of a dedicated Gambling Regulation Department within the Ministry of Finance, combined with the launch of the Inter-Ministerial Team for Countering the Grey Market, has built a framework for sustained cooperation between tax services, customs authorities, prosecutors, supervisory bodies and digital platforms.

This institutional architecture allows the state to monitor promotional patterns, payment anomalies and advertising behaviours in a more coordinated manner.

Over time this has evolved into a three-level strategy focused on disrupting visibility through actions directed at influencers and affiliate networks, constraining access by improving the effectiveness of domain control and digital monitoring, and severing transaction channels through pressure on payment institutions to offboard unlicensed operators.

The integrated nature of this approach reflects an understanding that illegal casinos operate as decentralised networks rather than isolated websites. Effective enforcement therefore requires addressing every layer of that network simultaneously instead of relying solely on static blocking measures.

Ecosystem risk shift

As a result of these combined actions the risk landscape surrounding Poland’s illegal casinos has shifted markedly. Influencers, agencies and affiliate marketers who previously operated with minimal exposure must now reassess the legal and financial consequences of promoting offshore brands. Payment providers face heightened scrutiny that forces them to strengthen due diligence mechanisms and to evaluate whether their systems indirectly enable gambling transactions masked through intermediaries.

Offshore Poland gambling operators themselves can no longer rely on familiar avoidance tactics such as domain rotation or alternative settlement routes, as each layer of their operational model is now subject to regulatory pressure. Whether these measures will lead to a long-term reduction in grey market activity will depend on the persistence of supervision and the ability of enforcement agencies to evolve in step with new technical workarounds.

What is evident already is that Poland has moved decisively beyond a model anchored in reactive domain blocking. The emerging enforcement strategy views illegal gambling as a networked ecosystem and applies pressure to every component of that ecosystem at once, marking the most significant shift in Poland’s approach to illegal online casinos since the introduction of the current Gambling Act.

Experts have also called for an end to Poland’s iGaming monopoly to stamp out the grey market and tackle the growing black market.