Key Points
- The Greek operators collected a whopping €91.3 million from player winnings in July and August, which is 73% higher than the previous year.
- Gross gaming revenue experienced a minor drop of 1.4%, coming to €206.5 million, yet it is hard to determine the extent to which the growth in withholding taxes was caused by the new rates.
- September statistics have not been released yet; it was supposed to be available in mid-November, but we have access only to the data until now.
As of July 1st, a nice win on a slot machine suddenly left the player €10 worse off than they would have been just a few months earlier. And it’s not just that, it appears that operators have been taking a much bigger slice of player winnings in July and August that’s around 73% more than a year earlier. And to make it even more interesting the Hellenic Gaming Commission says that the total amount operators withheld actually increased even though online revenue went down by 1.4% to €206.5 million.
The figures are actually based on the regulator’s cumulative totals and we had to do some calculations to get the specific numbers for July and August and that’s because the regulator didn’t go to the trouble of publishing a separate table for those two months.
Rates Went Up on 1 July and Guess What? The Exemption Remained Just Fine
In the summer, Law 5313/2026 changed the tax rates on online casino games and poker, with an eye on how winnings from each gaming session are taxed the first €100 of any win is still tax-free. But winnings between €100 and €500 are now taxed at a higher rate. We’re talking 20%, up from 15% and then of course there’s the new 30% rate on any winnings above €500. And as for sports betting and OPAP’s retail products completely off the hook.
For example, if a player strolls away with a €300 win in one go, they’re now coughing up €40 in tax that’s €10 extra clinked away compared to what they were paying in June.
Withholding Went Through the Roof While Revenue Barely Budged
Now it just so happens that withholding the amount of money players lose before even seeing their winnings was already heading upwards before the new rates kicked in. It went up 25.9% to €182.5 million in the first half of the year. Then in July and August, there’s this rather dramatic 73% jump in withheld winnings and don’t even get us started on the tiny 1.4% fall in online revenue that seemed to go hand in hand with it all.
Across the whole of the gambling market, the amount operators withheld from players totalled €369.4 million between January and August an increase of 27.3%. The online operators got away with €273.8 million, which is up by a whopping 38.5% on the same time last year.
Our math puts it at around 44% of online revenue that was snatched away in July and August that’s double what it was a year ago. But keep in mind that these figures are rough and should not be taken as the actual tax rates the players or operators eventually pay.
You can imagine our problem when trying to assess the impact of the new tax rates the regulator has split the data by distribution channel, rather than by the type of game which means we can’t automatically link the 73% increase to the new rate. The fact that the law targets what they call “other online games”, which is a different type of licence from online betting, makes things rather tricky to sort out. And to make matters even worse, the regulator warns that we might need to revise the numbers later on.
March Announcement on Tax Plans in Athens
In its efforts to assist in recovery after the economic impact of the Middle East war, Greek authorities announced the tax changes on March 23. Deputy Minister for Finance Thanos Petralias claimed that the tax change will bring €50 million to the state budget in 2026 and another €100 million to be gained by 2027.
Petralias called an increased state “a socially just thing”.
Minister for Finance Kyriakos Pierrakakis has defended this tax change saying that it should “bring more revenues for public services”. It has been estimated by the regulators that online gambling now contributes significantly to the state’s gambling revenue. From the €1.17 billion total gambling revenue of the state in 2025, online gambling brought €737 million.
There is information about the reasons why the government decided to increase the tax. However, the provided figures cannot tell us about any additional revenue from increased rates.
Enforced Measures Concern Illegal Gambling as Well
Increased taxes on player wins might make the customers of online gambling services switch to the illegal web-sites which offer higher winning chances. When asked about it, Petralias mentioned the first €100 exemption and a bill against illegal gambling.
The draft of the bill was released on June 5 and the consultation period expired on June 15. Law 5313/2026 was passed and published in the Government Gazette on June 25.
This very law forbids banks and payment services from processing stakes and player winnings from illegal websites. The promotion of illegal gambling websites in certain prohibited ways brings fines from €5,000 to €50,000 per offence.
On October 6, Pierrakakis told the regulator that illegal gambling brought about €1.8 billion in terms of wagers during 2025. The regulator’s 2025 annual report says that 10.6 per cent of the population is engaged in illegal gambling.
Of all the players participating in illegal gambling, 70.5 per cent use illegal websites due to higher odds, bonuses and less identity verification. About 900,000 people have been involved in illegal gambling and there have been about 15,000 illegal websites registered by the regulator. The amount of €1.8 billion concerns wagers, not any revenues or losses of legal providers.
Cases involving 18 influencers are still under preliminary investigation.
September Figures Were Expected on 10 November
The withholding statistics have been made monthly from then on, with publication required by the 10th of each month. The September figures were therefore expected by 10 November. We were unable to locate the published data as of this writing.
Three pieces of information will assist in judging if the trend seen in summer persists: withholding growth, online revenue, and their ratio to each other.
If the withholding growth rate is still around 73%, it would imply that the trend seen in July and August persisted. A decline back to the previous withholding growth rate of 25.9% would imply that the increased withholding seen in the summer is an anomaly.
A month of new data can offer some further proof, but it cannot explain the increase. An evaluation of the entire year would be necessary, but it will only be possible in 2027.
Expert Analysis: Tax Haul Not Necessarily a Cause & Effect Thing
We reckon the 73% boost in tax collection is going to be touted as proof the new tax rates are working but the facts just don’t support that yet. Just because the government is raking it in doesn’t mean we know why. Athens has only managed to establish that tax collection is up, but not what’s driving that increase.
The government upped the tax on player winnings after collecting 35% of gross gaming revenue from operators. Sounds simple enough to justify in a budget speech but the numbers just don’t yet tell us the whole story. The amount of tax withheld is also dependent on the size of player winnings not just the tax rate. If players are winning big that could easily push up overall collections even if no one’s changing their behaviour.
There is also concern about the lack of an explicit definition of a gaming session. According to the €100 exemption, taxation would occur per session. However, none of the reports reviewed provides any definition of a gaming session. If the definition of a session remains vague and undefined, it would be difficult to determine the exact point at which one gaming session ends and the next begins. This point may have an effect on the amount of tax paid by the gambler.
There should be a definition of each gaming session in the statement of each player. Operators should clearly state the total amount won by the player, the amount taxed, and how each session begins and ends.
As per the officials’ statement, the estimated income was based on the assumption that players would abandon legitimate websites for illegal ones. Unfortunately, there is no published model used to make such an estimate. Also, the secondment of 40 staff will definitely not do much against 900,000 illegal players and 15,000 rogue websites.
We should give credit where it’s due though publishing those monthly figures was a game changer. Without that we wouldn’t have had a chance to make that comparison with withholding and revenue. To make this data really useful, though, the regulator needs to separate out withholding by product. For now, the 73% increase just proves that the state is taking in more cash but we still don’t know what’s behind that jump.
Share
6 views
