João Alfredo Afonso, a partner at Morais Leitão and a specialist in gaming law, took part in the documentary ‘Jogo Viciado’ produced by Investigate Europe for RTP.
This episode takes a critical look at the growing addiction to online gambling, exposing the lack of effective regulation in the sector, the aggressive commercial practices of betting platforms and the legal challenges that make it difficult to prosecute illegal operators in the European Union.
In the documentary, João Alfredo Afonso analyses the legal contours of promoting illegal gambling in Portugal, warning of the seriousness of the phenomenon. ‘Anyone who promotes illegal gambling by any means, i.e. an operator who is not licensed in Portugal, incurs a criminal offence,’ he says.
His intervention reinforces the complexity of the legal fight against this reality. As he explains, ‘our criminal procedure has the means to pursue this type of offence,’ but the effectiveness of these investigations is often compromised by the transnational nature of the operations: many of these sites operate from jurisdictions that don't cooperate with the Portuguese or European authorities.
The episode ‘Addicted Gambling’ also denounces the pressure exerted on young athletes to promote bookmakers, even when this is forbidden by law, and exposes how legislation in countries like Malta is used as a shield to protect illegal operators, in a scenario described as a ‘digital Wild West’ in the heart of the European Union.
Watch the documentary ‘Addicted Gambling’, on RTP Play.
