Nielegalny hazard w internecie | RAPORT SPECJALNY

Special report on illegal online gambling in Poland, exposing Russian links, influencer roles, and government block bypass methods.

Key Takeaways

Illegal online gambling is a major issue in Poland despite government efforts to block sites.
Russian and Ukrainian entities are heavily involved in operating illegal gambling platforms targeting Polish players.
Influencers and political activists play a role in promoting illegal gambling.
Young people are increasingly vulnerable to gambling addiction due to easy access and aggressive marketing.
Stronger financial controls and legal enforcement are needed to effectively combat illegal online gambling.

What the video covers

The Ministry of Finance in Poland has blocked nearly 58,000 illegal gambling websites, yet illegal online gambling remains widespread.
Polish players reportedly spent over a dozen billion zlotys on illegal gambling last year, with significant funds and data ending up in Russia.
Illegal gambling operators bypass government blocks easily, using digital marketing and complex financial methods including cryptocurrencies.
A Confederation activist and Polish influencers are implicated in promoting illegal gambling sites.
GG Poker, a global online poker giant, is linked to Russian and Ukrainian operators under investigation for illegal gambling and money laundering.
Young people and students are increasingly involved in online gambling, with addiction risks rising sharply.
The only legal online casino in Poland is operated by Totalizator Sportowy; all others are illegal and should be blocked.
The illegal gambling industry generates massive profits and operates as a large gray market using modern digital tools.
Experts and activists call for stronger financial blocking measures and better enforcement to curb illegal gambling.
The report includes personal testimonies of gambling addiction and the social consequences of illegal gambling.

Chapters

How do illegal online gambling sites bypass government blocks in Poland?

Illegal sites bypass government blocks by redirecting users to slightly altered web addresses, using forged documents for registration, and employing payment methods including cryptocurrencies to avoid detection.

What role do influencers and political activists play in illegal gambling promotion?

Polish influencers and a Confederation activist have been identified as promoters of illegal gambling sites, helping these platforms recruit customers and expand their reach within Poland.

What are the risks of online gambling for young people in Poland?

The percentage of young people gambling online has increased significantly, with over half of 18-year-olds having gambled and one in seven at risk of addiction, driven by easy access, peer pressure, and aggressive marketing.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

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Good evening. My name is Bianka Mikołajewska. Welcome to a special report. Today's program covers illegal online gambling. The Ministry of Finance has already blocked nearly 58,000 web addresses offering illegal gambling. And yet, according to estimates, Poles spent over a dozen

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billion zlotys on illegal online gambling last year. According to the findings of the special report's journalist, a large portion of this money and the data of Polish players end up in Russia. How do illegal gambling organizers bypass our state

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blocks, and what role do Polish influencers and a certain Confederation activist play in recruiting customers for them? I invite you to watch Mariusz Sepioła's report, and afterwards, a studio discussion with Mariusz and our invited guests. How is it possible that

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illegal online casinos operate in Poland without any obstacles? We registered on the site, tried to make a deposit using a European bank card, and the attempt was successful.

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Who promotes the illegal sites? We got a professional from, I mean, from Bratislava, and that's it.

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That's the extent of my work. What role does a Confederation activist play in this?

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The customs and tax office raided my home. I have a court case. I already have my first verdict behind me. How does the money of Polish players reach entities linked to Russia, and how is it possible that gambling companies with

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Russian capital still operate in Warsaw? There's no one here. They're all gone.

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What is crucial for me in this matter when talking about such a huge company with high financial stability? Despite its position, this company still tolerates Russian aggression. It does not condemn it and maintains a huge network of connections there. It

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operates in that market, and it is headed by a man facing criminal proceedings in Ukraine. That is also recorded. It's recorded.

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I could play anywhere. I could play at university, I could play at work, at home, even while riding the bus. These red flags, you could say, were fatigue and sacrificing sleep to play. I managed to hide it for 4 years without

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letting anyone know I had a problem. We are talking to a young man who has been struggling with a gambling addiction for several years. He wants to remain completely anonymous.

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At some point, when I no longer had my own money for gambling, I took out a bank loan without many questions.

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Everything was managed right from my phone. The money was there in 15 or 20 minutes. Of course, all the money was lost in the span of, I don't know, a week and a half. The moment all my loan

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applications were being rejected, payday loan companies would appear with interest rates of around 300 to 400%.

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That was the peak moment, let's say. If I were to tally my current debts that remain and the debts already paid off, the sum is reaching around half a million. Our interviewee lost the most money in online casinos, on websites,

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and in apps with roulette or poker available with just one click. Why are online casinos so addictive?

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Lots of colors, many explosive effects when winning, the sounds that go with it, all kinds of bonuses for regular players. Deposit a hundred, and we'll give you a hundred. Guaranteeing free spins or big wins are the things that

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keep us in it. The percentage of students playing regularly has doubled, from 7% to 14%. Forty percent play occasionally, meaning over half of 18-year-olds have gambled, and one in seven is at risk of addiction.

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The National Center for Addiction Prevention has just published a report showing that, compared to previous years, the percentage of young people gambling exclusively online has clearly increased. Young people are clever, and even a 15-year-old can start playing these games. And peer pressure or

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rumors that you can win big money can lead young people to try these types of games.

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On my birthday, I decided to play in an online casino. From 200 PLN deposited, I pulled out nearly 70,000 PLN. Most of the funds were put into some investment accounts. The rest, you could say, I just blew on partying. In Poland, there

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is only one legal online casino, which belongs to Totalizator Sportowy. All others are illegal and should all be entered into a special government register maintained by the Ministry of Finance and blocked for Polish internet users. Casino operators easily bypass

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these blocks. The gray market is still huge, and experts estimate that the annual turnover of illegal online casinos and sports betting is over 27 billion PLN. We managed to determine how illegal casinos bypass government blocks. We confirmed that Polish

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players are sending their money and personal data to entities linked to Russians. We identified a massive promotional system for illegal casinos that helps them reach Polish players.

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The illegal gambling industry is one of the largest gray areas in business. It allows for the generation of massive fortunes. This is facilitated by modern tools: digital marketing, operating formally in one jurisdiction, and providing services globally. Oleksii Kuprienko is a Ukrainian lawyer and

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activist, co-founder of the "Don't Fund Russian Army" social campaign, which stigmatizes Western companies operating in Russia. We meet in one of the countries in Southern Europe. Kuprienko approached us with findings regarding the online casino GG Poker, which turns

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out to be effectively bypassing the Ministry of Finance's block. To realize what an extraordinary entity they are, we are talking about the absolute number one in the online poker industry.

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GG Poker is a global giant in the online gambling industry. It belongs to a Canadian corporation and reaches players in dozens of countries around the world.

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In terms of scale, in 2026, this platform recorded as many as 900,000 logged-in users. Without a doubt, it is a global leader.

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As Oleksii Kuprienko's organization determined, until recently, the Russian citizen Ivan B. was behind GG Poker's operations in Ukraine, and he is currently under a prosecutor's investigation. We have reached its details. Ukrainian authorities accuse B of organizing online gambling without a

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license, outside state control, and of money laundering. B has moved to Russia and manages online casinos from there.

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We conducted a fairly detailed investigation, in which we tried to register from different countries to gain access to their platforms, applications, and gambling offerings.

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In many European countries, among which Poland is the most significant example, they continue to conduct illegal activities. Despite the lack of a license, and even a formal ban, as is the case in Poland, they provide completely free access to their

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products to citizens of Austria, Finland, Croatia, Ireland, and many other countries. How does it work and how did you detect it? We had a device with internet access from Polish territory. We tried to access their flagship website from this device.

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Their main service is ggpoker.com. When Olek Kuprienko tried to log into it, he was automatically redirected to an identical GG Poker page, but with a slightly changed address. We tried to make a deposit with a European bank card and we succeeded. That was the

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moment we realized that access was completely unrestricted. A lot of these sites came from abroad, where the availability of this online cash is much, much greater. Even though these sites were blocked or labeled as illegal in Poland, it was enough to set

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up an account properly, forge some documents, and you could play. And how did you deposit funds into this casino?

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It depends. At the very beginning, when I wasn't paying much attention, maybe the amounts were smaller, you could deposit money via BLIK and withdraw via a traditional bank transfer. The moment these amounts became much larger, cryptocurrencies came into play. We

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checked what bypassing government blocks looks like in practice. We tried to launch illegal casino sites several times, and each time it turned out to be very simple. Bypassing the block usually took us about 25 seconds. We wanted to

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officials why bypassing the blocks is so easy. Despite many attempts, we were unable to convince them to talk to us.

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The state should take actions that limit accessibility and not turn this into a free market. This is always a discussion between this almost libertarian model. Do whatever you want , but we won't pay for your treatment.

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In Poland, it is the case that an addicted person can get treated for free, because it is a social disease.

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It is a disease that affects not only that person, but the whole family, the whole society. And here, it seems to me , there should rather be a discussion on how to try to tighten these mechanisms, in which direction to go,

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in order to protect society, to protect public health, rather than a mechanism of letting it run wild. Summer just got even more interesting. From July 10 to August 15, there is a summer poker challenge on GGPoker.

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Online casinos work closely with the traditional land-based gambling industry. We have established that in Poland, projects linked to GG Poker are promoted by poker tournament organizers . On the internet, we found materials regarding poker competitions in Bratislava. In one of the graphics, we

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see the logo of the Club GG application , which belongs to GG Poker. It turns out that these materials were posted by a portal belonging to a Polish company based in Gdańsk, with branches in cities across Poland. The company is

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involved in recruiting participants for poker tournaments. Among other things, it promotes championships for Polish poker players held in a land-based casino in Bratislava.

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It is a place where you arrive at the tournament hoping to rake in all the cash possible. In many cases, you return with nothing.

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We are heading to a Polish tournament in Bratislava with hidden cameras. Queues of players form from early hours , despite an entry fee of several hundred zlotys. Poker players compete in a dozen or so categories, and the prize pool totals several hundred

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thousand zlotys. The championship lasts several days. Those thousands of people running through there in one day, fighting for that money, where a large half of them are simply sick people.

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Following the instructions contained in the materials regarding the tournament in Slovakia, we log into the Club GG application. After just a moment, we manage to confirm that the prize in the online game is a package enabling participation in the Bratislava

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tournament. holding somewhere behind you. No. Just let me record him coming out. Mario, we came to Gdańsk to talk to the owner of the company that posted materials with the Club GG logo online.

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We organize tournaments all over Poland . We provide chips for the tournament, 150 for 300, for 500, for...

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Who does that money go to? Well, they ...and then we receive an invoice from ...

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I mean, from Bratislava. The graphics related to that tournament in Bratislava, which are on your website, I mean on the legal poker site , are they from Bratislava? Yes.

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I don't create them. I get an email, click, and here is all the list of tournaments and so on and so forth. They prepare it from A to Z, they do it, they do it, they do it. My

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job is that when we do these eliminations, I have 30, 50, 100 Polish players, and I have to send a list, yes, of participants who have the right to collect those chips, for which I paid via an invoice at the bank. That’s

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the end of it. That’s my whole job. Okay. Because on those graphics I found information regarding Club GG that in order to take part in the main event organized by Club GG, you have to log into the app to participate in the

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competition. took...that sometimes there are so-called promotions, meaning we get information that let's see, if you play today Mhm.

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let's say, you will get a ticket from the sponsor, so probably from GG or from the Casino. You go there, the Casino gives those tickets, they just give them, and we just inform about it then.

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Are you sure this doesn't violate the gambling promotion act? No, to be clear, because everyone has to be a proper casino organizer.

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We only run the qualifiers in Poland so they can go there, sort of for free. We don't run the tournament. It's not ours .

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Okay. I understand. So you are promoting this tournament, because I found information about it on your website.

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We are not promoting this tournament. Oleksii Kuprienko's organization conducted a detailed analysis for us, which shows that many other websites promoting GG Poker operate on the Polish internet. Rafał Gładysz, who presents himself as an institution in Polish poker, is associated with two

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such sites as a journalist. The customs and tax office raided my home. Uh-huh. I have a court case. I've already had my first verdict, a guilty one, of course. Have you ever seen a world championship in roulette or a world

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championship in slot machines? We pay the entry fee in cash, and for that, we can win an iron, a curling iron, or a Carrefour voucher. Well, poker these days is primarily a massive multi-billion dollar business, and we're talking big currency here. Our

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neighbors to the south, both the Czechs and the Slovaks, are making huge money off Poles and Polish players. Gładysz is also a politician, a Confederation activist, and the head of the Legionowo branch of New Hope, Sławomir Mentzen's party.

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Confederation has the best idea for poker, and it's exactly this, to to, to just, because Mentzen, because Mentzen is a guy who, like, and he plays poker himself, too, he comes. What, he doesn't anymore? Aha . Aha.

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And I've talked to him many times, and he has more or less this idea that it can't be casinos. Everyone is laughing at Poland, saying Poles are playing in Slovakia. Polish Championships in Slovakia. Well, honestly, what a shame.

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Confederation politicians have repeatedly called for the liberalization of the gambling act and the legalization of poker.

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I don't understand how, for 14 years, most MPs have had a problem with someone wanting to play poker in the evening. If you don't want to, don't play; no one is forcing you. But what kind of jerk do you have to be to spoil

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other people's fun? You probably knocked over your friends 'block towers in kindergarten, and it's stayed that way.

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The situation where adults who want to play cards together are harassed by the authorities is absurd.

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Poker is illegal in Poland. Poker players play the Polish Poker Championships in Bratislava while away.

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And Polish poker players pay taxes everywhere, just not in Poland. As he reported on his social media, Sławomir Mentzen met about this with representatives of the Bratislava championship company, as well as with Rafał Gładysz, the same one whose

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websites promoted casinos illegal in Poland. We are looking to contact Mr. Rafał Władysz. He is the chairman of the Legionowo branch of New Hope.

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Okay, I know who that is. Aha. Yes. I'm not sure if I have his number.

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Could you look for it? It's regarding the promotion of illegal gambling. We wanted to ask a few questions. We are working on this piece .

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Maybe invite him to... Fine, because gentlemen from Polish Television came here regarding a piece on illegal gambling, and they wanted Rafał to appear. The user you are calling is unfortunately not answering.

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Please leave a message after the tone. Good morning, Mr. Rafał. This is Mariusz Sypio from Polish Television. I would like to speak with you about the story I am preparing and the sites you were involved with. Please get in touch

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. All right, thank you very much. Best regards. Despite many attempts, we were unable to contact Rafał Gładysz. The Confederation activist also did not respond to emailed questions about why he promoted illegal casinos on his sites and whether he profited from it.

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We have determined that a large portion of illegal casinos are linked to Russia , either business-wise or technologically. This is a very important element of this grey market problem. Why? Because most of these entities involve Russian capital. That

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is where Poles' money goes. To confirm the Russian ties of the casinos where Poles lose their money, we analyzed thousands of lines of source code—simply put, the language in which gambling sites are written. We discovered, among other things, that

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the casinos use the services of a well-known Russian company that protects websites against hacker attacks. They also send detailed personal data of players, including logins, passwords, bank card numbers, and even exact addresses, to the largest Russian data aggregator,

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Yandex.ru, the eastern equivalent of Google. Using the Yandex Metrica tool, they create player profiles, essentially remembering their behaviors and preferences. The casinos are also directly connected to the systems of major Russian banks and payment gateways. We also established that one

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of the casinos operating in Poland without any issues was created and registered on a server in Russia. It was done personally by Anton H., the owner of an IT company located in this nondescript apartment block in Yekaterinburg. While analyzing the code

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, we discovered something else. One of the casinos sanctioned by Ukraine due to its ties with Russia offered the option to pay via BLIK, interestingly, to the individual phone number of a certain Vitali D. According to our information, he is an employee of a

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prestigious IT company in Warsaw. Illegal online casinos would not find customers in Poland without the help of so-called affiliate agencies. These are companies that earn huge amounts of money when internet users click on links to casinos generated by them. How

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does it work? A casino commissions an affiliate agency to post special links on the internet. If an internet user clicks such a link and registers at the casino, the agency gets a commission for it. In April 2026, an affiliate

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agency conference took place in the very center of Warsaw. We reached photos and recordings from this event.

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They show that representatives of the affiliate agency PINAP, which investigators in Ukraine accuse of having ties to Russian capital, gave presentations there. As a Ukrainian and a person with a legal background, I am well familiar with the PINAP case.

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Ukrainian services determined that Russian citizens were allegedly running illegal gambling activities in this company in Ukraine, including in occupied territories. On one hand, possessing no legal basis, and on the other, operating completely outside the law. Our services confiscated about 2

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billion 600 million hryvnias from this company, which is a very large amount of money. We found one of the business branches of the Pinup agency in Warsaw.

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On the surface, it is a completely normal IT company. We managed to establish, however, that its employees communicate using official PINAP emails . In its office, we found documents with the agency's logo.

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We wanted to speak with the management. We also met a man whom we had seen at the affiliate conference at the Pinup booth. I am just going to call in a moment then he wins.

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Okay, okay, okay. We are making a report on the activities of online casinos, and I know that the company Pinup Global was and still is involved in casino affiliation, including Pinup Casino, which is blocked in Polish registries. that my colleague

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said she is away yes and simply no one from his team can comment right now because no one is here. They everything alright I will not return for some time in email correspondence with the special report, the company denies any

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ties to the Ukrainian Pinup not only professional agencies steer internet users toward online casinos. Popular Polish influencers are doing it too.

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You everything total. Another 7k I encountered casino advertising on the internet on one of the streaming platforms where a stream of playing casino was taking place, and one of the creators was playing roulette. Of course, he was winning very large, for

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me even unattainable, funds. We are talking about hundreds of thousands here. The National Revenue Administration in Opole handled 41 cases concerning the promotion of illegal casinos by Polish influencers. These are often freak fighters, ex-freak fighters, people from various reality shows, pranksters,

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people who made a name for themselves on social media, big or small, they turned to what was left for them on the margins and became the fringe of the internet. Grzegorz Maxel is an influencer who decided to fight against

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Polish streamers who lure customers to illegal casinos. The king of casino players is, without a doubt, Szymol. He is one of the biggest, who started this practice.

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Good, one more here. Maybe somehow this is perfect. Dear Lord, what a win this will be. What a win this will be.

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Turned over almost. An investigation is underway at the regional prosecutor's office in Warsaw against Szymon B., a streamer known as Szymol. According to investigators, the YouTuber was allegedly promoting illegal gambling.

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done. The Casino King, Szymol, said that they sign lifetime contracts and that they will receive money for life from the losses of people who registered at casinos via their affiliate links. From then on, whenever that person loses any

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money, funds land in the account of this fallen influencer. Right. Grzegorz Maksel claims that his reports have put him at odds with the so-called "casino guys." I have received death threats. I am being attacked by everyone very intensely, because these fallen

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influencers have hordes, thousands of fans. If they are sent to insult me, to call me names, or to create a strange aura around me, these people will do it .

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Szymon B.B. did not want to talk to us on camera. Instead, he sent a laconic statement in which he emphasized that he does not admit to the crimes he is accused of. Elegant.

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And what would you say to someone who opens their phone or computer today and types "casino" into Google? What message would you have for such a person?

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My message to such a person would be to read any book about alcoholics and replace the word "alcohol" with " gambling," and to think five times about whether it makes sense to risk losing a hundred bucks, which could

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result in losing your whole life. When we see that a leading casino operator is making huge money in Russia, as well as illegally in Europe and other countries, we have to pay attention to it. If we don't, we may end up with

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some really unpleasant consequences. Can illegal online gambling be controlled? I will talk about this with our guests. We have two lawyers with us today, both with PhDs. Ms. Justyna Grusza Głębicka runs a law firm that specializes in gambling law.

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Good evening. Ms. Paulina Pawluczuk Buźko is also a lawyer academically affiliated with the University of Białystok and deals with economic crime. Good evening.

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Good evening. Also with us, of course, is the author of the report, Mariusz Sepioło.

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Good evening. Good evening. Mariusz, your report’s subjects suggest that basically any gambling can be harmful, regardless of whether it is legal or illegal, yet in your report, you mainly focus on illegal gambling. Do you see any advantages of legal gambling over

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illegal? First and foremost, it is definitely greater control. Of course, the effects of gambling on users cannot always be controlled 100%, but in the case of legal gambling, we have the possibility of greater control over the resources that these state monopolists

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have at their disposal. By which I mean the one legal casino belonging to Totalizator Sportowy. Because then we have the ability to control who is participating in this gambling, who is registering on the site, and what data they provide. We can verify the

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accuracy of this data on behalf of the state, and we can also prevent certain dangerous situations related to monetary transactions. Today, in these illegal casinos, which make up the vast majority of this market, we are effectively unable to control where the

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money comes from or where it flows. It is often a system based on cryptocurrency transactions. On the other hand, in the case of a legal entity, we are able to control every transaction, every deposit into an account, and every withdrawal from it.

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And why is it so important, for example , for the state to control who participates in these gambling games?

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Who is the customer? Primarily because minors today also have access to these illegal games.

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Meaning, these are teenagers. It happens; I have heard of cases of even 12 or 13-year-olds who can participate and have participated in these types of games. The subject of our report, a person addicted to gambling, started playing games as a teenager, so this is

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a really major danger. Statistics today say that this problem affects an increasing number of elementary school students, not to mention high school students. So, this negative effect in the form of gambling addiction, in the form of lost funds that teenagers also

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have at their disposal today. In the case of legal gambling, this can be controlled, at least to some extent.

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Mhm. Ms. Justyna, what forms of gambling can only the state offer online today, and what can companies that have the appropriate permits also offer? Mhm. Meaning, when it comes to the state monopoly, online casinos are covered by a monopoly, and in this

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regard, only a state-owned company can organize gambling games. Most lotteries also belong to the state-owned company.

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However, mainly those lotteries, I understand, cash-based ones. Where there are cash prizes? for example, lotteries where there are prizes of goods, promotional lotteries; one can apply for a permit for such a promotional lottery, and then, in reality, any

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entrepreneur who meets the appropriate requirements specified in the Gambling Act—which lists these requirements— and obtains such a permit, can organize such a lottery and mutual betting. It is a form of gambling that is permitted for all entrepreneurs, but, of course,

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subject to obtaining a special permit as well. So I understand that when it comes to the state, the casino, games that all resemble slot machines, only conducted online, that all belongs only to the state, while regarding private entities

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, so-called bookmaking, right? and those lotteries with lower winnings or promotional prize-based lotteries. Yes, that is exactly how it looks.

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In the Ministry of Finance's registry, there are currently nearly 58,000 blocked illegal gambling website addresses, and about 1,000 new addresses are added every month. Does this demonstrate the effectiveness of the state? The effectiveness of this method of fighting illegal gambling in

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general, or the complete opposite? Changes in the form of introducing a domain registry were created in 2016.

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In 2017, some of the regulations also entered into force. And here I must admit that in the initial stage, because we are talking about a period of nearly 10 years now, right? the tool was bringing the expected results,

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however, the online sector is still developing and this tool has ceased to be effective. Domains are being created , meaning simply that the entrepreneurs who conduct this type of activity have learned to bypass it, to put it briefly

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. Exactly. Clone domains are appearing. It really is a race against time. Yes. How long does it take to enter a given domain into the registry? Another one pops up. It is enough to change one letter or one digit in the address, and

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that is how illegal online casinos operate when they want to organize gambling games targeted at Polish players. And this is a very big challenge and a question that we, as researchers, keep asking ourselves. How can we simply seal the system and fight

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back? What exactly does entering such a domain into the registry achieve? We can say that this block eliminates casual players from the game, meaning someone who doesn't have any developed methods for bypassing these blocks, but just randomly visits a site. So yes, we

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can say that in this case, the block will have the expected effect. But if it is a player who knows how to play, they will find ways to bypass it. Yes.

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And let us also note that these domains are created in real time. We now have AI tools that support, as it were, the migration of these domains. Therefore, entering these domains into the registry at this moment is a Sisyphian

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task. Ms. Paulina, since this method is ineffective, perhaps the state should reach more for methods related to blocking finances, simply by preventing the flow of money to companies.

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organizing illegal gambling. Certainly. But the problem is very complex, which the author also showed in a very multi-threaded way in his material, because gambling is also an opportunity to make big money. And going further—the data, for instance from the European Commission, also

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points to this—online gambling is becoming a great platform for money laundering, and various other forms of crime intermingle here, which in correlation with gambling are very difficult to combat, both at the preparatory proceedings stage and later at the court proceedings stage. Because

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it is known: in every trial, one must obtain evidence, and this evidence, as the author here rightly noted in the material, must often come down, for example, to tracking cryptocurrencies.

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However, please note that gambling is attractive because we can introduce money into circulation, but then the source of this money disappears.

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You mentioned cryptocurrencies. How do they affect the development of this gray area in gambling? They have a very strong impact, because they have become a very attractive tool for money laundering online. Cryptocurrencies have already become a problem because

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they are, one might say, tools invisible to the naked eye. And while with traditional, fiat money, law enforcement agencies are able to track suspicious transactions, in the case of cryptocurrencies, tracing the origin of the funds becomes almost impossible,

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which makes online criminal anonymity so easy. Yes. For instance, the Wonda Crypto scandal showed us and made us all aware that to access a cryptocurrency wallet, you need a special key. If we had those keys in the context of this case today, it

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would be much easier to explain. And in the case of such a massive, multi-billion dollar market like online gambling, the way cryptocurrencies vanish into thousands of wallets, to which we don't really know who has the keys, is very difficult at this moment.

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What about the promotion of gambling? Is it truly the case, as implied in Mariusz's report, that the state is helpless against these entities, these companies, and these influencers who promote gambling online and direct people to websites involved in illegal

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gambling? It is not exactly true that the state is helpless, because we have a specific paragraph in the Penal Fiscal Code which states that a person who promotes or advertises gambling is subject to a penalty, so criminal proceedings can certainly be initiated,

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but the problem arises when this takes place in another country. Yes. And that is when the question arises: can we apply Polish law or not?

Speaker A

But these promoters we saw in the report operate within Poland. While they may point to events taking place abroad, these events are linked to the activity of websites that have clients from Poland. So, can these gambling promotion regulations be applied then?

Speaker A

They can absolutely be applied, because any advertising or promotional message directed at Polish players, regardless of whether it originates from within Poland or another country, is considered an action on the territory of Poland under the Electronic Services Act. Of course,

Speaker A

every case is different and all circumstances must be considered, but given the content of the report, I would consider that such an excuse is not an effective defense. And of course , we absolutely have the legal basis in

Speaker A

our country to combat this phenomenon of promoting illegal gambling. Confederation politicians argue that all we need to do is legalize what is currently illegal, and the gambling problem will be solved. Is that really the case?

Speaker A

There is an eternal debate on this topic. how to build this regulatory system when it comes to gambling, so that on one hand we respect the freedom of business activity, but on the other hand we protect society from the

Speaker A

harmful aspects of gambling. Because let's not hide it. Exactly. There is talk here about a model, but I would also mention one issue, to also think about what we already have. Because, for example, Poland is obligated to introduce a law on crypto-assets, and

Speaker A

as you know, it is still not in force today. And I am not saying it is the only reason why this gray market functions, but let's be honest: the lack of verification of entities that easily introduce crypto-assets or

Speaker A

cryptocurrencies in various forms into financial circulation is also, I believe, a very strong point of today's online gambling, and this law was prepared by parliament, but it was.

Speaker A

vetoed by the President. Well, and and because of that, Poland is also a very attractive place to organize online games. And therefore, it is also an opportunity for money laundering, for example, because when we look at various countries, Poland is one of the

Speaker A

few that has not yet introduced such regulations and which also make the registration of entities operating online very difficult, which is also evident from the report, but other countries also have a problem with illegal gambling, as it turns out,

Speaker A

and journalists from other countries are also interested in this problem. Yes, after filming the episode, I had a conversation with a journalist from Austria who is also dealing with this topic and who also reached interesting leads related to the entity mentioned

Speaker A

in the report. But it's not just Austria, it's also Ireland, Croatia, Germany. These are the countries where today investigations are underway, not only prosecutorial but also journalistic, about how entities organizing online gambling bypass local law, how they obtain fake, let's say it

Speaker A

clearly, licenses from exotic locations like Curacao or or other distant islands in the Atlantic Ocean. And now a question arises before us: should the responsibility for this problem lie with the governments of individual countries, or is it a matter for the

Speaker A

European Commission, the European Union , to consider how to deal with this problem, because it now concerns the entire continent, really, not just individual countries. Thank you very much for the conversation, and I encourage you to contact the editorial

Speaker A

office and suggest topics. I invite you to the next episode of the special report in a week at 8:15 PM, of course on TVPinfo. Good night and see you soon .

Topics:illegal online gamblingPoland gamblingGG PokerRussian gambling linksgambling addictiononline casinosgovernment blocksdigital marketingmoney launderingConfederation activist

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