Compliance has rarely stood still for the iGaming industry in the 2020s, and according to BetComply Chief Compliance Officer Mike de Graaff, the pace is only accelerating. 

Joining host Charlie Horner on iGaming Daily, de Graaff unpacks why staying compliant is becoming a near full-time job in itself, the trust gap forming between operators and regulators, and why he’s grown less optimistic about two of the industry’s most anticipated new markets.

De Graaff began the discussion by describing how regulatory change has shifted from an occasional event to a constant operational burden. 

Where markets like the UK and the Netherlands once saw a handful of major updates a year, operators now face changes, “three, four, five, six times a year,” according to de Graaff.

Each one, he says, triggers a chain reaction across product, policy and platform recertification. “It becomes almost a full-time job just to keep up with changes,” de Graaff said, warning that getting it wrong risks fines, sanctions, or commercial self-sabotage.

Pressed by Horner on whether lawmakers understand the complexity they’re legislating for, de Graaff was blunt: “No.” 

He argued that well-intentioned measures often backfire by introducing friction that pushes players toward unlicensed operators offering a frictionless sign-up and far more generous bonuses. 

“It’s not easy to stay both compliant and commercially viable nowadays,” he said.

That imbalance, de Graaff continued, is measurable. Wherever regulation tightens, traffic can be seen shifting toward unlicensed platforms, a dynamic he believes is now feeding demand for prediction markets as players seek fewer restrictions and richer offers elsewhere.

A trust problem between operators and regulators

De Graaff identified a deeper structural issue: a breakdown in trust between operators and regulators. 

He pointed to incident-reporting obligations as a flashpoint, where operators weighing whether to self-report a breach must effectively calculate the odds of being fined either way.

“Just the fact that that conversation is happening is already showing that the whole relationship is unhealthy,” de Graaff said.

His prescription is transparency from the outset, citing Denmark’s regulator as a model for allowing operators to informally test product ideas before committing to them.

“We cannot show up to a regulator unprepared,” he said, “do your best and be transparent from the start.”

New markets: Alberta up, Finland and New Zealand down

Turning to market openings, de Graaff was upbeat about Alberta, which launched last month with around 25 to 30 live operators. 

He described the framework as closely mirroring Ontario’s, with some licensing processes expedited for operators already active there, though he noted lower fines relative to the UK make breaches a smaller deterrent for operators locally.

His outlook on Finland and New Zealand was far less positive. 

On Finland, he called the market “dead on arrival,” citing an oversaturated applicant pool relative to the population and, in particular, a ban on affiliate marketing that he believes will simply push Finland’s large affiliate network toward unlicensed operators rather than out of the industry altogether.

New Zealand’s closed-license auction system for 15 operators drew similar scepticism. 

Without a cooling-off period for offshore operators, de Graaff argued the auction structurally favours incumbents who already know their players’ value and can bid accordingly, while new entrants risk overpaying for licenses whose player-acquisition costs they can’t yet price. 

Looking ahead, de Graaff flagged Austria as the next market to watch, though he was doubtful it would avoid the missteps of previous openings. 

Watch the full episode here.