Online casinos in Ireland

A market mid-transition

Ireland is the most actively changing market on Floath. For decades gambling here was governed by the Betting Act 1931 and the Gaming and Lotteries Act 1956, with the Revenue Commissioners issuing remote bookmaker and remote betting intermediary licences largely as a tax-collection function rather than a consumer-protection one. The Gambling Regulation Act 2024, signed into law on 23 October 2024, replaced that arrangement with a single dedicated regulator.

The Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland (GRAI) is that regulator. It licenses operators, supervises advertising, runs the statutory exclusion register and enforces the Act, with fines reaching €20 million or 10% of turnover, whichever is greater. The rollout is deliberately phased rather than a single switch-on, which is why the picture in 2026 is genuinely mixed.

Rules in the Act that change how sites behave

• Licensees cannot accept credit cards for gambling, and the prohibition extends to electronic or digital payments funded from a credit card — a wider drafting than the equivalent British ban.
• Offering or facilitating credit for gambling is prohibited outright.
• Once fully commenced, gambling advertising is barred from television and radio between 5:30am and 9:00pm.
• Advertising on social media may only be targeted at account holders who follow the operator's own channel, rather than pushed at general audiences.
• The National Gambling Exclusion Register bars licensees from accepting payments from, or marketing to, anyone listed on it.