The UK’s Gambling Commission said that Meta is turning a “blind eye” to advertisements of illegal casinos on its social platforms, alleging that the social media titan has a lacklustre approach to fighting the illegal advertisements.

As the ICE 2026 gambling conference in Barcelona, Tim Miller, the commission’s executive director, presented the struggles of regulating legal online gambling and reducing its harm, while managing and halting the proliferation of illegal gambling rings.

“Gambling regulators across the world are increasingly identifying suppliers, affiliates, advertisers, tech companies and others that work with licensed operators but who are also providing the same services to the illegal market,” he said.

Working internationally to regulate providers that may host illegal activity is difficult to do from a regulatory standpoint, which is why “there is an important and essential role for industry to play,” he explained.

Miller directly turned his attention to Meta, saying that users would more than likely to hae encountered ads for illegal casions on their Facebook and Instagram feeds.

He alleged that Meta is more than capable of finding, flagging, and removing these ads without needing intervention from regulators.

Miller said that this pattern “could leave you with the impression they are quite happy to turn a blind eye and continue taking money from criminals and scammers until someone shouts about it.”

He said in previous engagement with Meta surrounding the issue, the tech firm has suggested that the Gambling Commission use AI tools to monitor and report the ads; Miller retorted that: “I would be very surprised if Meta, as one of the world’s largest tech companies is incapable of proactively using their own keyword facility to prevent the advertising of illegal gambling.”

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The issue lead Miller to pose the question: “‘Whose side are you on?'” to Meta and other platforms that are allegedly allowing illegal casinos to run ads unchecked.

He said that despite having the capabilities to find these ads, Meta “simply chose not to look.”

When asked for comment, a Meta spokesperson told Reuters: “We’ve been working closely with the Commission to identify and remove all ⁠the flagged ads found in violation of ​our policies, and we’re using this intelligence ​to further improve the proactive detection tools we already have in place,”