The Digital Fairness Act: How the EU’s New Rules Impact Online Gambling
EU lawmakers are coming for the attention economy, and online gambling sits squarely in its path. The European Commission is expected to table the Digital Fairness Act (the “DFA”) in the fourth quarter of 2026, with November reportedly the target. It takes aim at dark patterns, addictive design, unfair personalisation, misleading influencer marketing and opaque pricing across digital services generally.
Gambling is not the named target. But few sectors have as much riding on the outcome. The industry is built on engagement, personalisation and the careful design of the player experience. The European Parliament has already identified online gambling as a priority area for consideration under the DFA.
While the DFA would apply across the EU, it is likely to be particularly relevant for Malta, which remains one of Europe’s leading hubs for licensed online gambling operators.
Why the Digital Fairness Act Matters for Online Gambling
There is no sector-specific EU gambling law. Member States regulate their own markets, subject to the EU’s fundamental freedoms. Operators are still bound by horizontal consumer protection rules, chief among them the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (“UCPD”). The UCPD can already catch a trader that exploits a known vulnerability, such as poor impulse control or a history of problem gambling, through addictive interface design, relentless prompts or sensory cues that encourage further spending.
What the UCPD struggles to reach is the harder-to-quantify fallout: hours lost, the psychological toll, and the slow erosion of a player’s sense of control. That is exactly the gap the DFA is meant to close. And because the Commission has signalled it will not single out particular sectors, gambling operators may find themselves assessed against broad fairness-based digital consumer protection standards rather than rules written with gambling-specific safeguards in mind.
The Shift from Compliance to Fairness
Addictive design sits at the top of the DFA’s expected agenda. Reward loops, loot boxes and features that reward staying and penalise leaving all lean on behavioural biases. In gambling, every extra minute of engagement can translate directly into further spend.
Dark patterns compound the problem.
The Commission’s 2022 study of popular websites and apps flagged “nagging” on gambling platforms, including pop-ups at every login inviting a deposit.
Other research has documented accounts that are needlessly hard to close.
The DFA could change the lens on deposit flows, continued-play prompts and account closure, testing them not only against responsible gambling standards but against a broader question:
Is the experience fair to the consumer?
Personalised Gambling Offers and the Use of Player Data
Using player data to tailor offers is not inherently wrong. It becomes problematic when knowledge of a player’s vulnerabilities is turned into leverage. Few industries generate richer behavioural data than online gambling, and investigations, including Cracked Labs’ work for Clean Up Gambling, describe operators profiling players by addiction-related signals and targeting lapsed customers to draw them back. Such practices become especially difficult to justify when a player is showing signs of financial distress or trying to quit.
The DFA would not replace data protection law; it would sit alongside it.
The GDPR asks whether data may lawfully be processed.
The DFA would ask the harder question: even where processing is lawful, is it fair?
Among the ideas in the policy debate is an explicit right for consumers to opt for non-personalised offers.
Influencers, Affiliates and the Protection of Minors
Gambling is age-restricted, yet it is routinely promoted through channels minors use every day, including social media, affiliate networks and influencer marketing, where commercial content is increasingly difficult to distinguish from ordinary content.
Parliamentary Pressure
In November 2025, the European Parliament voted 483 to 82 for a non-binding resolution urging that targeted advertising, influencer marketing, addictive design, loot boxes and dark patterns aimed at minors fall under the DFA’s scope.
What Children Are Telling Policymakers
In July 2026, the Commission published a survey of almost 5,000 children across the EU: 69% said influencers should only promote products that are safe and appropriate for them, and 72% favoured some form of age verification on social media.
The Kids Act Connection
In September 2026, the Commission proposed the Kids Act, which targets design features that encourage compulsive use by minors and variable reward systems on social networks and video-sharing platforms.
Taken together, these developments point towards a broader regulatory trend.
For operators, the DFA’s reach could extend beyond the content of an advert to how that content reaches its audience. This raises harder questions about affiliates, influencers and audience-targeting practices.
The Bottom Line
Nobody can say for certain what the DFA will require until the Commission publishes its proposal. But the direction of travel maps closely onto how gambling businesses are built, promoted and run.
Operators should therefore begin assessing not only whether their products satisfy existing compliance requirements, but also whether they would withstand scrutiny under a broader fairness standard.
Before the text lands, operators should look beyond whether their products tick existing compliance boxes, and instead consider the overall player experience from the consumer’s perspective.
The real significance of the DFA may lie less in new checkboxes and more in a changed standard of judgement: not whether the rules were followed, but whether the player was treated fairly.
The final text is still unwritten, but the direction is not in doubt. For online gambling, compliance and fairness are no longer the same question.
Operators who treat player fairness as a genuine design principle, not an afterthought, will be best placed for whatever the DFA ultimately demands.
They are also likely to be better positioned to earn the trust of increasingly informed consumers.
For Malta, as a jurisdiction that hosts a significant number of EU-facing online gambling operators, the outcome of this debate will be particularly important. How the line between compliant and fair is ultimately drawn could have implications across the sector.
