A media report by Kathimerini this week has drawn attention to the increase in live and online gambling in the country. According to the news site, 8.5 billion Euro each year is being spent on gambling and lotteries and 1.5 billion of this online is being awarded to illegal online gambling sites.
Approximately 3 billion is spent each year in Greece's nine casinos with the number of visitors set to increase in 2007. The Loutraki casino is expected to draw crowds of up to 5,000 during the Christmas period and around 3,000 people daily for the remainder of the year.
Similarly, internet gambling sites are making record profits from Greek gambling fans. Sports betting events have also seen a sharp increase in participation for the competitive returns they offer to gambling fans. While online gambling is illegal in Greece, this doesn't seem to perturb the punters. “The number of those who [illegal games] is fewer than those who play the legal games, but the amounts that are bet are much larger,” one anonymous police source has said.
Police have voiced concerns that several well-known betting agencies are actively increasing the debts owed to them by gamblers by collecting bets and processing them for a four percent commission. According to police, one in ten Greek betting agency owners has adopted this scheme.
The increased interest in gambling has been attributed by media to a string of successful marketing campaigns by gambling firms and changes in traditional Greek society.

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