Estonia to review gambling law as self-exclusion list nears 21,000
Nearly 21,000 people in Estonia have placed themselves on a gambling restriction list, prompting the Ministry of Finance to plan a review of the Gambling Act next year, with changes possible in mid-2026.
The number of people in Estonia who have voluntarily restricted their access to gambling has grown steadily, with nearly 21,000 now on the self-exclusion list. The Ministry of Finance plans to review the Gambling Act next year, including how the restriction list is compiled. Under the current plan, the changes could take effect in the middle of the year after next.
Last year, the state collected €61 million in gambling taxes. The list has grown over the past three years: in 2023, it included 17,203 people. A single person can have restrictions on several types of games. Currently, restrictions on games of chance apply to 20,628 people, sports betting restrictions to 9,767, and lottery restrictions to 5,968. Sports betting restrictions have increased by 348 since the beginning of the year.
A person is added to the list indefinitely based on their own written application, specifying a period after which they may submit a new request to be removed. The period cannot be shorter than six months or longer than three years, explained Jekaterina Nikitina, head of the excise department at the Tax and Customs Board. In her view, the rising number of self-restrictions indicates that people are increasingly aware of player protection mechanisms, and these mechanisms work well; otherwise, players would not use them.
Under the Gambling Act, operators must ensure that people on the list cannot play the types of games they have restricted. Rainer Osanik, head of the financial information policy department at the Ministry of Finance, said only isolated cases have occurred where companies failed to meet this requirement. If a person on the list is still allowed to play, the operator must refund the losses; if the person wins, they must return the winnings.
Next year, the Ministry of Finance plans to review the Gambling Act, including the rules for compiling the restriction list. Osanik noted that gambling addicts often do not want to add themselves to the list. Currently, no one else can add them, but family members often suffer. The system should allow a person to be added on certain additional grounds, either at the initiative of a family member or by court order. Estonian law does not currently allow this, and the ministry will begin analyzing how it could be done.
