As Turkey ramps up its nationwide campaign against addiction, officials are acknowledging a troubling gap in its strategy: online gambling. At the recent annual meeting of the High Council for Combatting Addiction, Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz praised institutional progress but admitted that illegal online betting has eluded effective oversight.
The meeting, held at the Presidential Complex in Ankara, reviewed the country’s implementation of 91 directives issued in 2019 to combat substance abuse and behavioral addiction. According to the Ministry of Interior and health organization Yeşilay (Green Crescent), 88 of those recommendations have now been fulfilled. These include expanded tobacco cessation clinics, classroom-based drug education, customs surveillance, and smartphone safety initiatives.
But the tone shifted when Yılmaz addressed gambling.
“We’ve made strong headway in combating substance addiction. But our fight against gambling—particularly digital gambling—is far from sufficient,” he said. “It remains a blind spot in our national addiction strategy.” The Vice President cited the rapid rise of offshore betting platforms and the lack of real-time surveillance tools as key vulnerabilities. He likened the online gambling ecosystem to “organized digital crime,” drawing comparisons to narcotics trafficking in its cross-border nature and speed of proliferation.
Turkish government and the hard hand to control the online industry
Turkey officially prohibits all forms of online gambling outside the state-sanctioned lottery. However, experts say millions of Turkish users still access offshore platforms through virtual private networks (VPNs) and illegal payment channels. The government’s enforcement response, though active, has focused more on shutting down domestic servers than tracking offshore financial flows.
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While Turkey’s health ministry has made strides in school-based prevention—launching support lines like ALO 171 and specialized clinics for digital overuse—the regulation of online gambling remains largely unaddressed in legislation. Yılmaz urged a coordinated interagency task force that combines cybersecurity, telecom regulation, financial intelligence, and digital advertising control.
“If we don’t escalate our response to match the complexity of the threat, we risk losing this battle in the digital arena,” he warned.
As countries like Brazil and the Philippines implement licensing models and data-led enforcement, Turkey now faces a choice: escalate enforcement or modernize its regulatory framework. For now, gambling remains Turkey’s most under-regulated addiction risk—despite being one of its fastest growing.
