As Albania prepares to bring sports betting out of the shadows, conditions favour international operators

For the past seven years, the population of Albania has been living under a blanket ban on sports betting. Since 2019, betting halls, slot halls, and all online gambling verticals have been prohibited. With unregulated sports betting GGR estimated at $126 million last year, international operators may see an opportunity – but the potential for channelisation remains unknown.

This July, however, the government announced it had put the finishing touches to a new framework that will guide the partial reopening of the sports betting market. Once the licensing process is complete, up to 10 online operators will be able to take wagers from customers in the Balkan nation.

The new regime has been a long time coming. As early as 2022, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama admitted that, despite the ban, the betting economy was still “flourishing” online. “We are talking about taking this activity out of the black economy and bringing the profits into the light, because nobody can block it – not even China,” Rama said at the time.

But despite passing legislation to reopen the market back in 2024, it has taken more than two years to flesh out the details of the new regime.

Even now, several unknowns remain. When will the first licensing round begin? How many licences will be available? And, most significantly: has more than half a decade of prohibition dulled the appetite for betting?

Why was sports betting banned?

Back in 2018 – the year parliament voted to bring in the ban – Albania’s sports betting market was generating an annual turnover of €700 million. Retail betting was highly concentrated, with 4,000 betting shops serving a population of just over 2.8 million.

“There were a lot of betting offices in Albania – everywhere, near schools and in local neighbourhoods,” explains Hendri Hanaj, founder and partner at commercial law firm Hashtag Lawyers. “The government was forced to do something because it was getting out of control.”

According to Hanaj, small-scale betting was also incredibly widespread. “Everyone was betting,” he says. “Not hundreds or thousands of euros, but everyone was betting in small amounts.”

The rapid rise of the betting sector was causing growing unease among politicians, fuelling fears of widespread addiction and its impact on low-income households. Prime Minister Rama, a former basketball player, also raised concerns about the integrity of sports and alleged that some betting companies had links to organised crime.

“We are waging a frontal war with the evil entrenched deeply in our society over the years,” he told parliament in October 2018, ahead of the vote to ban betting.

In the years following prohibition, however, it became clear that betting had not disappeared: it had simply been driven underground.

According to initial estimates from Gaming Compliance International (GCI), Albania’s unregulated online sports betting market generated GGR of $117 million in 2024, rising to $126 million in 2025. When online casino and poker are included, total unregulated online GGR reached an estimated $229 million last year.

What will the new market look like in Albania?

Despite his apparent U-turn, Rama is clear that he doesn’t want to return to the “havoc” of widespread retail betting in Albania.

This time around, only online betting will be permitted. Brick-and-mortar betting shops and slot halls will continue to be barred entirely, with casinos remaining restricted to a handful of premises in five-star hotels.

Entry to the market will also be tightly controlled. Albania’s new sports betting legislation paves the way for “up to” 10 licensees, with the exact number set to be decided by the Licensing Commission when it opens the application process.

This means that just a handful of operators could be let in at first, testing the waters of the newly regulated market.

The government forecasts that the new regime could bring in around ALL2bn (€20 million) in public revenues per year, with 15% of GGR going directly into a “special fund” for culture, sport, technology and innovation.

However, legal expert Hanaj believes the years of the ban may have dulled Albania’s fervour for sports betting. 

“There is an appetite for sports, but it has faded over time,” he says. “People like my father, or my cousins who are older than me, like sports more. Of course, people will bet, but I don’t think it will be as massive as before.”

Due to digital payments, the online-only market will also be “easier for the government to monitor and control”, he adds.

What we know so far about the framework

As Hanaj points out, traceability and oversight will be a key part of Albania’s new framework. Taking advantage of the digital-only structure, players must sign up online using a national identity card. Cash betting is prohibited, and payments must be processed by Albanian banks, licensed electronic money institutions or payment providers.

For their part, operators must monitor all transactions and retain player records for at least three years. They must also enforce the national self-exclusion register, with information on excluded players stored digitally. According to media reports, wider family members will be able to ask for a relative to be barred from gambling, rather than the responsibility lying with only the player themself.

There will also be an obligation to inform players of the risks of gambling and chances of winning, as well as directing them to sources of support. As BIRN recently reported, however, Albania currently has no dedicated gambling counselling or rehabilitation centre.

In June this year, the government also finalised the guidelines for suspending and revoking betting licences. Operators who violate licensing rules twice within a three-year period can see their licence suspended for between 30 days and two years. During this time, they will be unable to take bets. If a third violation occurs, the licence can be revoked.

As well as the 15% GGR tax for the “special fund”, operators will also pay Albania’s standard 15% corporation tax rate, in addition to local taxes and the licence fee. The latter, which is determined by bids but set at a minimum of ALL400 million (€4 million), will be paid in instalments over the 10-year licensing term. 

Who’s likely to get a licence?

Operators hoping to get a slice of the Albanian market will face some significant barriers to entry. They will have to be registered as an Albanian joint-stock company, demonstrate gambling experience across at least three EU or OECD markets, have a turnover of at least ALL2 billion (€20 million) in the last financial year and hold at least ALL40 million (€400,000) in share capital.

Based on these key criteria, the licences will be awarded via a points-based system. Up to 30 points will be awarded based on offers for the licence fee, with the highest bidder receiving the full 30 points. Additionally, up to 30 points will be awarded for gambling-sector experience, 20 for governance and organisation, 15 for technology and software and five for a three-year business plan.

In Hanaj’s view, these criteria seem designed to favour large international companies.

“There are a lot of conditions to get the licence and no Albanian company, at least, would be able to meet them – or at least none that are interested in betting,” he explains. “It’s not that Albanian companies are not capable – of course they are capable of being compliant. I think the government is looking for companies that have been doing this for many years, which would be better for the market.”

A clause in the latest regulations seems to support this view – once the Licensing Commission decides to launch the competitive procedure, it must put out a call for applications within seven days. According to the guidelines, this must be done on its website, on Albania’s Public Notices Bulletin, and “in two international newspapers”.

What we still don’t know

In July 2026 – more than two years after parliament approved the partial reopening of the market – Albania’s Gambling Supervision Authority said all eight implementing regulations had been finalised.

But as operators wait for the starting gun to fire, authorities have remained tight-lipped about the exact timeline for implementation. At the time of publishing, the Ministry of Finance had not responded to a request from iGB to clarify the timeline.

With Albania setting its sights on EU accession by around 2030, the licences could be awarded in the coming year or two, Hanaj says. “But that’s just my opinion,” he adds.

What also remains unclear is exactly how many of the 10 licences will be awarded and whether the legal market will be big enough to support more than a handful of companies.

Nevertheless, Hanaj believes that the low incremental costs of starting an Albanian-facing betting site and “manageable” licence fees will make the market an attractive prospect for large international operators.

Albania was once a hive of fervent betting activity, punching well above its demographic weight in wagering volumes. Since betting reached its peak in 2018, however, Albania’s population has fallen from 2.8 million to 2.75 million, and it remains a relatively low-income country. But in gambling and other sectors, the Balkan nation has a track record of occasionally defying the economic odds.

“There are around 12 banks in Albania and I don’t think the market supports that,” Hanaj points out. “But they are still here and still working.”