About this app
How to play slot machines
The GMI, know locally as EEE, is described as a “residual payment to guarantee and legal minimum income for all residents”.
Anyone residing in Cyprus, with income not high enough to support their basic needs, is eligible for the benefit.
Cyprus is not the first market to consider whether to block its welfare recipients from using their benefits to gamble, Brazil introduced a similar ban in 2025.
What is slot machines?
According to the survey, the problem arises when a user follows a single account related to betting. The platform’s recommendation system then starts showing other profiles in the same segment, including betting sites, influencers and specialised pages.
Among the 100 most recommended profiles are accounts that, together, have accumulated more than 6 million followers and 114,000 posts. There are three main types of profiles recommended by Instagram: operators, content creators and media specialising in the betting market.
The research also identified content that associates betting with investments and the possibility of income.
About slot machines
That distinction also informs his view of the wider battle. Asked whether illegal gambling can actually be defeated, his answer is: “No, but you can make it very difficult for them.”
The objective, he argues, is to make it harder for operators to simply replace a blocked domain with another one. “If they knew there was a tool that would find those new sites as well, they might become more cautious.”
It is a philosophy that sits within a broader shift in the industry’s approach to the illegal market. Domain blocking remains important, but regulators are increasingly looking at payments, advertising, affiliate and acquisition channels and cooperation across jurisdictions.
