How the Czech Republic is quietly building a new model for gambling governance

For years debates over gambling regulation have followed a familiar script. Operators complain that politicians legislate by headline. Regulators accuse the industry of resisting oversight. Public-health experts argue that commercial incentives inevitably undermine player protection.

In Prague, an experiment is under way that attempts to change that dynamic.  Recent data suggests that, in the Czech Republic, illegal gambling is costing the market $15.9 million in lost tax revenue, as players have lost up to approximately CZK14.5 billion every year gambling with unlicensed operators.

The Institute for Gambling Regulation (IPRH) is, on paper, an industry association representing around 95% of the Czech Republic’s regulated gambling market. Yet Jan Řehola, the institute’s director, insists it should be understood differently. Rather than acting as another lobbying body, IPRH seeks to function as a permanent platform bringing together operators, addiction specialists, behavioural economists, regulators and government officials to design evidence-based policy.

Whether this collaborative model ultimately succeeds remains to be seen. But it reflects a broader shift occurring across European gambling regulation: the recognition that neither governments nor operators possess enough information on their own to address increasingly complex problems such as illegal gambling, online harm and cross-border player behaviour.

The institute’s flagship project, known as IRIS, illustrates that philosophy more clearly than anything else.

Success means measurable change

Modern online gamblers rarely confine themselves to a single bookmaker or casino. They maintain multiple accounts, move between platforms and respond to competing promotions. Operators, however, see only their own fragment of that activity.

“At the core of IRIS is a simple idea,” says Řehola. “We look at gambling from the perspective of the player, not the operator.”

A customer’s behaviour may appear perfectly ordinary when viewed by one operator in isolation. Across four operators simultaneously, the same customer may be increasing stakes, extending playing sessions and accumulating losses rapidly enough to indicate emerging harm. “It makes no sense for one operator to warn a player while another rewards him with a bonus,” Řehola argues.

IRIS attempts to solve this collective-action problem without creating what many critics fear: a central database containing personal gambling histories. Instead, the system relies on pseudonymised identifiers assigned by the Czech state licensing infrastructure. Operators never exchange customer names or account details. The platform analyses behavioural indicators across participating operators, classifies risk using a common methodology and returns only the resulting risk category to each operator simultaneously.

That is the architecture. Whether it delivers is a different question.

But Řehola is candid about the limits. “I would not present IRIS as a magic solution that works in 100% of cases. Nothing in prevention or addiction risk reduction works like that.” What makes the system different, he argues, is that it allows testing at the market level. “The system continuously evaluates the risk scores of players across all participating operators. We can see whether the overall risk level is rising or falling over time, and whether specific interventions are followed by changes in behaviour.”

Success, he says, will not be measured by how many messages are sent to players. “Success means measurable changes in players’ behaviour: lower risk scores over time, reduced escalation, better use of limits and fewer players moving into high-risk categories.”

He also acknowledges the flip side: if a certain message or timing does not change behaviour, the model must adapt. “One of the biggest advantages of IRIS is that interventions can be evaluated almost in real time.”

Are operators really willing to sacrifice revenue?

That framing raises