The online gambling market in 2026 is a cash engine, projected to reach around $153 billion by 2030 and still growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of nearly 12%. Meanwhile, in the US alone, some states are tracking year-on-year iGaming (online casinos and bets) revenue growth in the 20-30% range.
With this kind of growth comes both opportunity and risk. Every new player, every payment gateway, and every mobile betting session opens another digital door that can be exploited. The scale of real money, personal data, and global cross-border access means the industry is a high-value target. Just one recent report showing how web-application attacks in the gaming sector soared by nearly 94% between Q1 2023 and Q1 2024 should be enough to make every operator sit up and pay attention.
But here’s the real issue. For many operators, cybersecurity is still treated as an IT expense we can just write off and forget. But that mindset has to change. Cyber incidents in iGaming will increasingly do more than just interrupt service. They will threaten license approvals, erode player trust, halt payments, and damage brand reputation.
In this article, we map the current threats in the iGaming sector, explain why the industry is crossing into a strategic era of cybersecurity, and then focus on the next wave of attacks expected in 2026. Finally, we’ll walk through what operators and industry professionals should start preparing for now. Not just technically, but operationally and culturally. The time to act isn't tomorrow. It’s now.
2025 Snapshot of Current Security Threats
With the growth of iGaming comes more players, more transactions, and more devices. That’s good, but for the iGaming sector, that also means more frequent, more diverse, and more aggressive cyber threats. Let’s take a look at what operators are already facing:
Service-outage attacks (DDoS and beyond)
One of the most visible threats is the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack . In plain terms, it means a flood of traffic or requests that overwhelms a site or game platform, making it unavailable to legitimate users. For an operator, an outage during a peak-time event can mean real-time revenue losses and erosion of player trust. Experts are reporting that the convergence of high-volume digital betting and global time zones is making iGaming platforms especially vulnerable.
Account takeover and credential-based fraud
Operators in the iGaming space handle large volumes of player accounts, with associated wallets, bonuses, loyalty points and personal data. Criminals exploit stolen credentials, weak passwords or insecure authentication to hijack accounts, conduct fraudulent transactions, or cash out player funds. This risk is elevated in mobile-first gaming, where users may reuse passwords or skip secure practices. According to some sector reports, phishing remains a top method of entry.
Supply-chain and third-party risks
Modern iGaming platforms are built with numerous integrations in the form of payments, affiliate networks, live-dealer studios, game-content providers, cloud services and more. Each partner connection is a potential weak link. A security breach at one vendor may expose upstream operators. One insurance-broker report notes that as the industry expands across geographies and licensing regimes, the inconsistent levels of partner security readiness become a key concern.
Data breaches, fraud and game-integrity attacks
Beyond downtime and account theft, there’s also the threat of sensitive personal and financial data being exfiltrated (stolen and transferred out of a secure system without authorization). In iGaming, the added dimension is the integrity of the game platform itself. Attackers may seek to manipulate game logic, rig outcomes, or undermine trust in fairness.
Human-factor threats and insider risk
Even the strongest technical defenses can be defeated by human error or malicious insiders. In the context of iGaming, staff or affiliates may inadvertently expose credentials, or intentionally collaborate with attackers (via phishing, social engineering or vendor fraud).
The regulatory/operational cost of security lapses
It is also important to note that the threats aren’t just technical. Operators challenged by a breach or outage face cascading costs in terms of regulatory investigations, fine exposure, risk to their license and loss of player trust. Trust is a cornerstone of iGaming and when a platform fails to perform securely, the commercial impact is immediate.
The key takeaway for operators is that collectively, these aren’t distant or niche risks. They’re present, they’re evolving, and they’re business-critical. The point isn’t just to be aware, it’s that the baseline of good enough in 2025 is moving fast.
iGaming Security Is Entering Its Strategic Era
For years, cybersecurity in iGaming lived in the shadows, typically seen as a back-office expense justified only after something went wrong. But in today’s climate, those days are over. The same market forces that have driven record betting volumes are now exposing the underlying vulnerabilities. Security is no longer a line item, it’s now a measure of whether a business can operate in betting markets.
Across Europe, that shift is being formalized by new legislation. The EU’s updated NIS2 Directive (Directive (EU) 2022/2555) demands not just technical defenses but board-level accountability for cyber risk, placing senior executives directly responsible for breaches. At the same time, the Malta Gaming Authority has tightened its expectations on infrastructure hosting and cloud controls, making third-party security part of license oversight.
In conclusion, the message is clear. Regulators no longer assume good faith. They expect proof through audits, documentation, and actions.
This is happening because the business has changed. A sportsbook or casino platform is no longer a single site behind a firewall. It’s a complex web of APIs, payment processors, streaming studios, CRM systems, and affiliate networks. A vulnerability in one area can spread across the chain within minutes. A cloud misconfiguration in a marketing vendor, for instance, can expose hundreds of thousands of player records. Similarly, a fragile integration can derail payments at the height of a matchday. The risk is not, therefore, theoretical, it’s operational.
And accountability has moved upward. Under frameworks like NIS2 and the UK’s Gambling Commission technical standards, senior leadership must treat cybersecurity as a governance issue, not a technical one. Boardrooms that once delegated security to IT are now learning that lapses threaten license renewals, investor confidence, and even personal liability. In short, cybersecurity has become a strategic issue that works alongside compliance and finance in determining whether an operator can scale across jurisdictions.
Furthermore, the issue of trust is also being redefined. Players rarely notice encryption or tokenization, but they do feel the effects of downtime, slow payouts, or suspicious account behavior. Those moments have the potential to decide whether they stay or leave. A 2025 industry survey by a leading online security group found that over half of all online gamblers would stop using a platform permanently after a data breach.
In 2026 and beyond, cybersecurity in iGaming will no longer be judged by the absence of incidents but by the speed, transparency, and maturity of response when they occur.
Emerging Threats and What’s on the Horizon for 2026
The year ahead will likely mark a turning point where familiar threats start behaving in unfamiliar ways. It’s not just the number of attacks that is rising, but the ingenuity, precision, and coordination behind them.
Below are the threats worth watching as you prepare for 2026.
1. AI-powered social engineering and phishing
Generative AI is helping attackers draft faster and personalize at scale, create convincing deepfakes, and automate entire attack campaigns. The result is phishing click-rates and account takeover risks that can outpace traditional detection measures. For an iGaming operator, this will manifest in bot account takeovers or fake avatars convincing a VIP player or high-value affiliates to transfer funds.
2. Quantum-era cryptography and harvesting
While quantum attacks remain largely theoretical for now, criminals are already stealing encrypted data that can be decrypted once quantum computing matures. In parallel, regulators and operators might face sudden demands for quantum-resilient encryption. Player financial data or identity records stolen today may be held until they can be decrypted and monetized later on, which is a longer-term risk to reputation and regulatory compliance.
3. Insider/affiliate channels and multilayered fraud chains
As iGaming grows globally, the network of third-party vendors expands. Attackers will exploit this by manipulating trusted insiders (via social engineering) or weak affiliate infrastructure to orchestrate fraud or data extraction. Regulatory focus on third-party risk will intensify. A practical scenario could look like this - an affiliate’s system is breached, leading to insertion of malicious code or credential harvesting that hits the central platform’s user base.
4. Autonomous agentic attacks and AI-driven malware
It is not a far leap to imagine that the malware of the future may not be simply programmed, but could learn, adapt and make decisions. Threats from agentic AI (software that takes initiative rather than just following instructions) introduce a new dimension of unpredictability to cyberattacks. In the online gaming industry, this could mean automated attacks timed to major sporting events, system-wide evasion routines, or dynamic attacks that alter game-integrity data in real time.
5. Extended reality (XR), metaverse and virtual asset exploitation
If your platform expands into VR casinos, metaverse lounges or uses game assets/NFTs, you invite a wider set of risks into the environment. Virtual items, wallets and cross-platform identities can become targets. The convergence of gaming, crypto and Web3 means the security threat broadens beyond browser/web to immersive environments. Operators will ultimately need to ask questions like ‘Do we treat game assets like bank deposits?’ and ‘Do our XR endpoints have visibility and controls?’
6. Regulatory fragmentation and jurisdictional arbitrage
With global iGaming operations, different countries will adopt different cybersecurity and data-protection rules by 2026. Attackers will exploit less regulated regimes as proving grounds for wider penetration. Operators face complexity in aligning compliance across borders, and any mismatch can become a liability. The implications for your security framework are that it must be global, not local, and your vendor chain must be resilient across jurisdictions.
Defensive Strategies for Operators in 2026
Traditional cybersecurity via patch cycles, password resets, intrusion alerts, etc., is reactive by design. In 2026, the iGaming sector is predicted to face a move towards continuous assurance, where every partner, process, and packet is under real-time scrutiny. This will happen because cyber attacks will become so distributed that defense depends as much on how quickly a company knows it’s been breached as on whether it can prevent one.
Forward-looking operators are beginning to treat their digital supply chains like living components, so each vendor, API, and affiliate is audited not once during onboarding but repeatedly through automated compliance checks and live telemetry. Due diligence now involves interrogating not only finances and licensing but also algorithmic integrity, essentially asking whether a data partner’s AI can be trusted to resist manipulation or deepfake interference.
Security in 2026 will also hinge on operational intelligence and the integration of cybersecurity into daily business. Threat data will no longer live in a dashboard; it will inform trading limits, payment verification, and even the timing of marketing campaigns. Anomaly detection tools and AI-driven risk engines are already beginning to blur the line between compliance and protection, feeding insights directly into business logic.
What this means in practice is that cyber defense becomes an operational conversation. The operators who thrive will be those who embed cyber awareness into daily workflows, not policy, thereby treating detection and response as extensions of business intelligence.
The final layer of defense is essentially cultural. Regulation is already steering the industry towards greater transparency, but reputation will enforce it faster. Players no longer judge platforms by their odds or bonus offers alone. They also judge by how they handle a crisis. The operators that survive future attacks will be the ones that communicate early, disclose fully, and rebuild trust through verifiable recovery and not silence.
The same accountability frameworks underpinning the EU NIS2 Directive and the UK Gambling Commission’s Technical Standards may soon apply across all markets, creating a new social contract between platform and player, namely, openness as proof of control. In the end, the strongest security posture in iGaming will come from how leadership, culture, and process turn stability and reliability into a visible part of the brand.
Turn Foresight into Preparedness with Altenar
It is becoming more apparent that as iGaming enters 2026, credibility will depend less on defenses and more on evidence that those defenses actually work, backed by proof. Altenar’s recent recertification under ISO/IEC 27001:2022 (certificate no. 239970) confirms its information security management system now spans new regions and enhances controls such as threat intelligence and data-leakage prevention. In today's environment, that’s more than a shiny badge. It demonstrates that resilience is built into every phase of its iGaming platform.
But governance is only half the story. Altenar’s technical engine also carries meaningful accreditation with a GLI-33 standard for event-wagering systems. This ensures its architecture is subject to independent lab testing, transaction-logging, and system integrity criteria that many regulators now require. For operators, this means the platform they deploy is more than robust. It’s audit-ready, jurisdiction-prepared, and trustworthy in environments where player data, loyalty tokens and live wagering are under attack.
When these two elements - rigorous governance (ISO) and field-tested platform integrity (GLI) - merge, they produce something rare and essential, and that’s visibility. Operators partnering with online sportsbook and casino software providers like Altenar can show regulators, investors and players that security isn’t just an afterthought, but a defining feature of the platform itself.
As iGaming platforms grow more interconnected, this kind of joined-up integrity allows operators to demonstrate readiness, accelerate market entry and reduce barriers. In short, they turn resilience from an internal cost into a visible asset in the brand story.
Explore the architecture behind Altenar’s trusted sportsbook. Book a demonstration today and discover how ISO 27001 compliance and GLI 33 certification translate into reliability that your players can feel.
