Operating in highly regulated markets is never an easy feat. But things in the European Union got significantly more challenging over the summer. Three new laws have come into effect that impact multiple disciplines across the iGaming industry.

The EU Accessibility Act, the Digital Operational Resilience Act and the AI Act all came into force in 2025, meaning that companies’ user interfaces, cybersecurity and AI capabilities must be reviewed. Websites must now be accessible for all with disabilities, while DORA maintains that besides operators, which are subject to ISO standards, payment institutions must have robust cybersecurity mechanisms as well.

One may tackle these challenges using AI, but the EU is now regulating how companies can use that as well.

Navigating each of these pieces of legislation is a challenge alone, but adjusting to all three seems an impossible task.

“These three acts are specialisations. Accessibility is a specialisation on its own, cybersecurity on its own, AI on its own, and then the regulatory challenges on their own as well,” Mike De Graaff, Chief Compliance Officer at BetComply tells SBC Leaders magazine. “It’s not like one super genius that works in-house can solve all of these, because they simply can’t.”

De Graaff outlines that operators simply are not ready for these changes, adding that very few have the in-house capabilities to adjust to such legal evolution simultaneously.

One may be forgiven for thinking about consulting a lawyer about this. But De Graaff warns that this is definitely not the right approach as it will be a very expensive and ultimately futile endeavour.

“Going straight to a lawyer racks up bills, and they only explain the law. You still have no practical implementation, so you then need to go to compliance or IT specialists with whatever the lawyer produced in terms of super-expensive guidance.”

A total redesign

It’s tough to strike a balance between maintaining compliance with the three acts and still having a profitable business at the end of it. But shying away from the challenge will only make things more expensive in the long run, says De Graaff, who explains that this is a moment when operators should be considering major platform upgrades.

“You’re going to get a patchwork platform and operations that are super-expensive, sluggish, and no one knows what the hell is going on inside the platform anymore. I think you should be using this as an exercise to do a complete platform overhaul at once, and then redesign it from the ground up.”

BetComply, as a compliance consultancy firm, is ready to support companies who will need to adjust to these measures imminently. Even with the EU Accessibility Act, which has a five -year grace period, operators will have to immediately comply upon any major upgrade to their websites or when launching new ones.

The consultancy has a whole team of experts in-house who can support companies through these choppy waters, even if this is a completely new challenge.

De Graaff explains: “There is no firm out there that has multi-year experience of doing this, because these acts are brand new. We have regulatory compliance experts in-house. We have technical compliance with legal experts. We have mental health care experts in-house, addiction care experts in-house, legal financial experts in-house.”

The firm aims to be a one-stop shop solution for any compliance challenge. In this specific context, BetComply has in-house capabilities for around 80-90 per cent of the challenges.

As De Graaff adds: “You can go to a law firm. You will get legal advice. You can go to a compliance company. Most of the time they’re just regulatory compliance and bound by jurisdiction. You can visit these individual shops, or you look for a party that knows how to bring things together and make a viable product out of it.”

The big risk

As you can probably imagine, BetComply has been working with a whole host of operators to ensure compliance with complex frameworks like these three pieces of legislation and sets out individual plans to help them achieve their goals.

Even if operators are leaving it until the last moment, which De Graaff vehemently advises against, BetComply can put together a short-term plan to fix things.

It begins with a gap analysis, followed by putting together a short-term plan, then a long-term plan to ensure compliance for the foreseeable future.

The CCO explains: “We find out where you are, then we create a short-term compliance plan to demonstrate adherence where possible, and then do the roadmap for the rollout after that.

“For example, with the EU Accessibility Act, you’re not going to get fined next week if you don’t have every single thing sorted on the website, as long as you can demonstrate there have been changes made and that people that have accessibility issues have a good way of reporting feedback to you about the accessibility, but you need to demonstrate that.”

There is no denying that the introduction of the EU Accessibility Act, DORA and the AI Act poses significant challenges for companies of all sizes. Some may be thinking about pushing the boundaries of what is and what is not compliant.

But De Graaff warns that companies simply cannot afford to risk not being compliant. The stakes are simply too high.

Underlining that BetComply is ready and willing to aid operators through this legislative evolution, De Graaff offers some parting wisdom for those looking to adapt.

“Don’t ruin your own market by breaking the law. If you’re in a regulated market, you need to adhere to the law. Do it properly. If you don’t know how to do it, and don’t go in there or at all, or hire companies like us to help you out with it.

“Trying to wiggle through it and try to make money non-compliantly in a regulated market is a death sentence.”

 

**Meet BetComply at booth PP210 at SBC Summit in Lisbon from September 16-18.

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