Study commissioned by the European Commission finds scammers are using major advertising platforms to target victims.
The European Commission (EC) has been alerted of six advertising fields, in which audiences are being highly targeted by scams.
The feedback forms part of new research commissioned by the EC to support the protections and principles of the Digital Services Act (DSA).
It comes as online financial scams continue to grow across all platforms including search engines such as Google and social media sites such as Meta’s Facebook and Instagram.
Losses from financial scams is now the region of €900bn each year, globally, according to GASA’s Global state of scams 2025 report.
Conducted by Open Evidence and Spark Legal and Policy Consulting, the study identified six broad scam categories: investment, romance, e-commerce, employment and collaboration, unexpected gains, and charity and disaster relief.
Boundaries blurring in scam categories
Among the categories, investment and e-commerce are the most common and fastest-growing forms of scams in Europe.
Investment scams often promise high, guaranteed returns and reportedly use deepfake celebrity endorsements, fake trading platforms and private messaging groups to lure victims. GASA estimated that in Europe, losses from such scams reached €4bn in 2024; and global scams linked to cryptocurrency hit approximately €15bn in 2025.
Meanwhile, e-commerce scams exploit customers’ expectations of products or services. It spans across undelivered products, counterfeit products, health and wellness scams, rental and more.
A key finding from EC’s study is that online financial scams were not isolated incidents. Scammers tend to operate through the same ecosystem that legitimate advertisers operate through.
Research cited in the report found nearly one in three ads on major platforms in the EU and UK directed users to scam, phishing or malware, with recommendation algorithms often amplifying scam narratives.
As a result, the study stated how “the boundaries between scam categories are blurring”.
Ads concealing gambling functions
Within this wider assessment, gambling-related findings highlighted weaknesses in advertiser verification, fraudulent casino promotions and mobile applications that conceal their gambling functions.
These vulnerabilities raise questions over how major platforms establish whether gambling advertisers hold the permissions required to target specific markets.
Meta and Google have already come under fire for persistent scam ads on their platforms. Often these are also investment or financial advice scams from operators without authorisation from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
Consumers attracted by promises of winnings can subsequently encounter frozen accounts and blocked withdrawals, underlining the risks associated with both fraudulent services and the systems distributing their promotions.
Verification must reflect national licences
For European gambling stakeholders, advertiser verification remains complicated by national licensing requirements.
Confirming an advertiser operates a registered business does not establish it is authorised to accept customers in every jurisdiction reached by its campaigns.
Effective checks must therefore establish whether the promoted gambling service holds the relevant permission in the market being targeted.
The findings place further scrutiny on whether platforms’ licensing controls match the sophistication of their advertising services, which allow businesses to identify and reach narrowly defined audiences.
Mobile distribution presents a further challenge. Research discussed in the report identified applications that conceal gambling functions during approval checks before activating them once available to consumers.
Such practices can undermine safeguards applied by app stores, while an approved listing may give consumers misplaced confidence in the service.
The findings indicated that monitoring must extend beyond initial approval to account for changes in an application’s behaviour and functionality.
Study supports DSA supervision
The commission’s research extends beyond gambling to examine the wider infrastructure supporting online scams.
Advertising systems, recommendation tools, monetisation, private messaging and deceptive identities are assessed as potential channels through which fraudulent services reach consumers.
The study also examined organised networks selling tools and services that reduce the barriers to conducting fraud, alongside the growing role of artificial intelligence in expanding deceptive activity.
However, the EC specified the research does not assess individual platforms’ compliance with DSA obligations. Its findings provide evidence to inform supervision and policy development, rather than a determination that particular companies have breached the legislation.
The research draws on desk research, stakeholder interviews, a survey of national authorities and a multi-stakeholder workshop.
It identified substantial economic and social consequences from online financial scams, including annual losses running into billions of euros and psychological harm suffered by victims.
Stronger checks and co-operation proposed
The study identified four areas for countermeasures: access and identity checks, detection and removal, consumer-facing protections, and platform governance and cooperation.
Proposed measures include stronger business verification, automated detection supported by human review, clearer reporting channels and improved information on redress.
Co-operation between platforms, authorities and external organisations is also identified as a means of improving the prevention and detection of scams.
For licensed gambling operators, the findings reinforce concerns over unauthorised competitors accessing digital distribution channels without meeting equivalent regulatory obligations.
For consumers, the presence of a promotion on an established platform offers no assurance the advertised gambling service is authorised or trustworthy.
The research provides the commission with further evidence to guide its supervisory work, placing emphasis on preventative controls capable of identifying suspect advertisers before consumers deposit funds.
