Greece Combats Illegal Gambling

The General Secretary is striving to combat the outlawed gaming and declared it is: "...harming the national economy and acting as a mechanism for laundering ill-gotten gains", as reported by Kathimerini.

Sourlas stated to Kikilias that efforts are being implemented: "...which make us optimistic that an end will be put to organized crime rings operating without constraint", after meeting with the Hellenic Gaming Commission chief Evgenios Giannakopoulos.

Last month in a Kathimerini interview, the Commission leader commented, "In the illegal market, EEEP figures estimate there are between 60,000 and 100,000 illegal gaming machines at non-licensed gambling spots, and a conservative guess puts their turnover at between 4 and 5 billion euros. Their gross profits should come to 1.5 billion, not including online gambling, which had a turnover of about 1 billion euros".