DIGITAL SERVICES ACT
without a gambling-specific risk-assessment methodology. That flexibility may be justified in a cross-sectoral instrument, but it also creates a risk that gambling will remain subsumed within broader regulatory categories and therefore fail to receive attention proportionate to its specific risks and characteristics. This distinction matters when it comes to enforcement. Article 66 empowers the Commission to initiate proceedings against VLOPs and VLOSEs suspected of infringing the DSA. However, to date, no Commission proceeding has been publicly identified as specifically concerning illegal gambling promotion. While this absence does not, itself, establish a failure to enforce the DSA, it points to a limited body of publicly available evidence demonstrating that the Commission’s formal enforcement powers have been applied to this problem. The contrast with sector-specific gambling regulation makes the point sharply. National gambling authorities can determine directly whether an operator is licensed, prohibit unauthorised gambling services, block access to illegal websites and impose administrative sanctions. The DSA, by contrast, only reaches the intermediary layer through which gambling content and services are disseminated. Its tools complement national gambling regulation rather than replace it. The practical difficulty is that the DSA’s effectiveness depends on an underlying determination of illegality that only national gambling law can supply. Without a reliable, coordinated route from that determination to platform action, the division of labour between EU and national levels risks becoming a source of delay rather than a solution.
Conclusion This article has argued that the DSA leaves a genuine sectoral enforcement gap when it comes to illegal gambling content. Its notice-and-action mechanism, trusted flagger framework and systemic risk assessment obligations all apply, formally, to gambling-related illegal content. But their effectiveness is constrained by the DSA’s horizontal design, which was never built to supply the jurisdiction-specific licensing expertise needed to identify unlawful gambling promotion at scale. The Commission’s response to MEP Verheyen is a useful illustration of exactly this gap: rather than committing to a dedicated investigation, it restated the existing legal framework without explaining how the gambling sector’s particular characteristics would be addressed in practice. That response highlights a broader limitation of the regulatory framework, as formal legal coverage does not necessarily translate into effective, sector- specific enforcement. The DSA does not completely fail to regulate and address illegal gambling, but rather largely relies on mechanisms that operate across sectors, while the determination of whether a gambling service is unlawful often depends upon national licensing rules. The resulting regulatory structure is therefore dependent on cooperation between platforms, specialized flaggers and national gambling authorities. That dependence may be unavoidable, but it leaves the practical effectiveness of the framework contingent on coordination, sectoral expertise and a willingness to move beyond general statements of obligation toward targeted enforcement.
LUIS CARVALHO Co-Managing Partner Lektou For more information contact luis.carvalho@lektou.com +351 211507232
TANIA PINHO Senior Associate, Lektou
MARTA BOTICA SANTOS Trainee Lawyer, Lektou
PAGE 20
IMGL MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER 2026
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker