Türkiye Names Curaçao, Malta and Others as Illegal Betting Hubs

Türkiye's National Lottery Administration (MPI) has named Curaçao, Malta, the Isle of Man and Seychelles as the licensing jurisdictions behind illegal betting sites targeting Turkish players. The assessment identified 84,585 illegal gambling sites operating out of 70 countries, pointing to licence regimes rather than at individual operators.

The MPI report found the United States hosts the largest share of these sites, followed by the Isle of Man, Armenia and Colombia. Authorities blocked 51,263 US-hosted sites, 5,745 linked to the Isle of Man, and 5,698 in Armenia, and instructed the BTK to restrict roughly 535,000 websites in total.

Under 152 administrative decisions, more than 5.58 million webpages, images, audio files and payment resources were pulled, and 12,548 servers and connection addresses were disabled. Eleven organizations were ordered to halt operations and four lost their licenses.

A State Is Now Naming the License, Not Just the Operator

Türkiye banned non-state online gambling in 2006 and has blocked sites in bulk ever since, escalating from 24,815 reports in 2022 to 232,899 in 2024 a near 10-fold increase.

Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz puts the country's illegal betting economy at $20bn to $60bn. What changed is the target.

Naming Curaçao and Malta in an official document converts licensing arbitrage from an industry open secret into a diplomatic file, and it makes an offshore seal in a casino footer evidence rather than reassurance.

That seal never guaranteed a payout or a dispute process, and now a government has said so in writing. MPI has referred overseas sites to the Foreign Ministry and financial crimes board MASAK for cross-border action, which is where the next move comes from.