A Danish court has backed an order from the country’s gambling regulator resulting in a record 82 illegal websites being blocked.
It is the eighth time that the Danish Gambling Authority has gone to court to have illegal websites blocked that offer gambling activities such as betting and online casino to Danes without a licence.
On 22 September 2022, the court in Frederiksberg ruled in favour of the Danish Gambling Authority in all 82 cases that had been reported. It is the highest number of blockings at one time since 2012, when the Danish gambling market was partially liberalised, and the Danish Gambling Authority began blocking websites that illegally offer gambling to Danes. By comparison, the Danish Gambling Authority’s action against 55 websites in 2021 was upheld.
“The Danish Gambling Authority was established to ensure the framework for a fair gambling market. One of our most important tasks in that context is to protect players against illegal gambling and to ensure that they are not exposed to gambling providers that do not have a licence in Denmark. At the same time, it is very important that we ensure that the operators who are licensed to offer gambling in Denmark can run their business under orderly conditions and therefore our work to block illegal websites is very important,” Anders Dorph, Director of the Danish Gambling Authority, said.
Since the current Gambling Act came into force in 2012, the Danish Gambling Authority has had a total of 227 illegal websites blocked by the city court.