On 12 April, Hungary’s Tisza party took 141 of 199 Parliamentary seats. That is a constitutional supermajority – the kind that does not need coalition partners to rewrite fundamental law.

For Hungary’s gambling market, the distinction matters. Hungary captures an estimated 20-25% of its online gambling potential. Romania, with roughly double the population and a competitive licensing framework open since 2015, generates around €130m ($113.2m) in regulated online GGR per month. Slovakia, half Hungary’s population, generates €60m. Hungary? Just €13m. The rest flows monthly to Maltese, Curaçao and crypto-based platforms.

The gap was not inevitable. It was chosen.

How Hungary compares with neighbouring markets

Romania opened under its National Gambling Office, the ONJN, in 2015 with over 40 operators licensed within three years – and a channelisation rate above 60% within the decade. The early years were not smooth: enforcement was inconsistent and several operators exited after failing to compete against unlicensed alternatives. But the regulator learned in public, iterated, and the market deepened.

Slovakia followed a similar path: smaller population, a multi-licence structure and a regulator that developed genuine enforcement capability over time. Both countries accepted the same underlying logic – you cannot build a regulated market without first making it easier to be licensed than to operate offshore. Hungary inverted that logic entirely. The single-concession model made offshore the rational choice for any operator wanting to compete on product rather than political access. The numbers are simply what that policy produces.

Since 2014, Hungary’s online market has run practically under a single-operator concession. LVC Diamond, the primary concession holder, paid out an estimated 95-100% of after-tax profits as dividends over three consecutive years. Its reinvestment rate was 3-6%. The industry standard for a growth-phase operator, however, is 15-20%. The concession was not treated as the foundation of a business. It was the business.

The opportunity at hand

A supermajority can rewrite the Gambling Act, replace SZTFH leadership with a single vote, and open the licensing framework to competitive bids – none of which were available under a simple majority. The state also holds a ready-made asset: Szerencsejáték Zrt. quietly upgraded its platform and built online sports betting capability. A dedicated casino licence would give it something to compete with.

Peter Magyar, the new Hungarian Prime Minister, has already said that all long-term political assignees will be dismissed. We should watch the SZTFH appointments. A political loyalist means new faces but the same extraction model. A regulator with actual industry experience means someone is serious about building a market rather than protecting one.

What that looks like in practice is not complicated. A functioning regulator has a technical licensing team capable of evaluating platform architecture, RTP audits and AML frameworks without outsourcing its judgment to the applicant. It publishes enforcement actions. It sets channelisation targets and measures against them. ONJN in Romania took roughly five years to reach that standard; Slovakia’s Úrad pre reguláciu hazardných hier got there faster, partly by learning from Romania’s early mistakes.

Neither started from a position of full independence – both were state bodies – but both developed institutional memory that eventually outlasted individual appointments. Hungary’s SZTFH has the legal framework to do the same. What it has lacked is the mandate. A director with genuine sector experience and a clear political signal to prioritise market development over revenue extraction would shift the calculus for every international operator currently watching from the outside.
Hungary has more untaxed online gambling revenue flowing offshore each month than its entire regulated market captures. That is the opportunity. Whether the incoming Government treats it as one is the question that matters.