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What is Firefly Frenzy?
According to Çiftçi, the rapid growth of digital payments and cryptocurrencies has transformed illegal betting into a major conduit for money laundering.
“Casinos, junkets, cryptocurrencies and underground banking are the most critical parts of the money laundering infrastructure that fuels international organised crime,” he said at the time. “The global gambling market will reach $205 billion in 2030.”
The government blocked 548,420 illegal betting and gambling websites between 2006 and 2025, including 84,000 in 2025 alone.
About Firefly Frenzy
Remote casino, betting, and bingo activity was the standout channel, generating £8.3 billion in GGY, a 6.9% year-on-year increase and accounting for approximately 63% of the non-lottery industry yield.
Online casino stood at £5.7 billion for the 12-month period, of which £4.8 billion was derived from slots. Remote betting came in at £2.4 billion, led by football (£1.2 billion) and horse racing (£769.3 million). Remote bingo GGY was at £147.8 million.
Quarterly data from January to March 2026 reinforced this trend, with online verticals generating £2.2 billion, and remote casino alone accounting for 68.3% (£1.5 billion) of that total.
About Firefly Frenzy
Dutch MPs have raised similar concerns before. In December 2025, CDA MP Straatman asked the state secretary whether websites advertising as “Beste casino’s zonder Cruks” should be taken offline immediately.
In a written response published in January 2026, Arno Rutte, the state secretary at the time acknowledged that enforcement against such sites remained limited, particularly for domains not registered under the .nl extension.
According to KVA, KT van Bruggen, the current state secretary for Justice and Security, has pointed out the urgency of implementing effective countermeasures to limit access to such illegal platforms.
