Ireland’s iGaming demand rose 9.3% after Stake’s exit, but Stake wasn’t

Brand-level Blask data shows Stake’s own demand index stayed flat while Ireland’s market surged, pointing to a dense Sunday sports calendar instead.

Ireland’s gambling market is under active enforcement, with the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland pushing unlicensed operators to block Irish users. Blask data for the week of 14–20 September shows Ireland’s iGaming demand index climbed 9.3% week-on-week, the period in which Stake’s withdrawal was reported, but brand-level figures rule the operator out as the cause.

The market spiked. Stake did not

For most of September, Ireland’s daily Blask Index, a real-time measure of iGaming market demand based on normalised search data, held broadly within a 76,000 to 125,000 range. That changed at the end of the week commencing 14 September. The market-wide index reached 157,800 on 19 September, then jumped to 183,400 on 20 September, the highest reading of the period. Those two days were enough to lift the weekly result significantly.

Stake’s own brand-level figures tell a different story. Its daily Blask Index stayed within a relatively narrow range across September as a whole. On 20 September, Stake reached 831, up 9.6% day-on-day, but still well within levels the brand had already recorded earlier in the month. The market surged while Stake remained broadly flat.

The regulatory backdrop

Stake blocked access for Irish users following engagement with the GRAI, with Irish media dating the block to the week beginning 7 September and reporting it on 14 and 15 September. The regulator declined to name the operators involved, telling the Irish Times that ‘operators, including two major prediction markets and a major international online gambling platform, have geo-blocked their services, which means that they have voluntarily restricted access to their platforms for users from Ireland’.

Stake is understood to be the platform referenced, with the prediction markets understood to be Kalshi and Polymarket, both of which blocked Irish users in July. Blask reports that Stake has since said it intends to apply for a licence under the new regime.

The GRAI’s framework, established under the Gambling Regulation Act 2024, took effect on 1 July 2026, with 33 remote betting licences issued as of mid-September. Operators serving Irish customers without one are now operating unlawfully. Stake had previously applied comparable geo-fencing in the UK after losing its licence there in March 2025.

A single Sunday carried most of the increase

Hourly Blask data shows the strongest market-wide movement came at 06:00 UTC on 20 September, when the index reached 13,850. That day carried an unusually dense sports calendar: Celtic against Rangers, a full Premier League Sunday slate including Bournemouth against Liverpool and Fulham against Manchester United, domestic GAA club championship fixtures, Ireland Women against the USA in rugby, and the final round of the BMW PGA Championship.

Because betting activity typically begins well before kick-off, the early timing of the spike does not rule sport out. Rather than pointing to a single fixture, the pattern is more consistent with the combined effect of a heavily loaded betting day. Blask stops short of naming sport as the cause, and demand does not always move where the obvious cause suggests. What the data supports firmly is the negative finding: whatever drove the increase, it was not Stake.

The weekly figure also obscures how concentrated the movement was. The bulk of it was compressed into two days, with 20 September accounting for the decisive push.

One methodological caveat applies throughout. The Blask Index measures search-derived demand volume for iGaming brands within a given country. It tracks search attention, not betting handle, deposits, or regulatory outcomes. A flat Stake index means Irish search interest in the brand did not move; it does not measure whether displaced Stake customers registered elsewhere.

About Blask

Blask is an AI-powered analytics platform for the iGaming industry, providing real-time market demand data across multiple jurisdictions. Its Blask Index measures normalised search attention for iGaming brands at hourly granularity.

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