Digital accessibility has become a legal, reputational, and operational risk that gambling operators can no longer afford to ignore. With less than three months until EU Member States must begin enforcing national laws implementing the European Accessibility Act (EAA), gambling industry stakeholders face a fast-approaching compliance challenge.

Failure to meet accessibility requirements could expose operators to financial penalties, enforcement action, public scrutiny, and consumer litigation—especially if key features like responsible gaming tools are not accessible to all users. We’ve already seen how this can unfold in the United States, where thousands of lawsuits have been filed under the Americans with Disabilities Act against digital platforms, including online gambling operators.

In response, gambling advisory firm EGARA and accessibility technology and certification provider CityMaaS have announced a strategic partnership to deliver the first-ever accessibility solution tailored to gambling operators by combining their respective fields of expertise.

This includes accessibility audits, product integration support, certification, and staff training—all delivered with a deep understanding of the unique demands and risks faced by licensed operators in highly regulated gaming markets. It addresses a long-overlooked risk area that also ties directly into responsible gaming, fairness, and user protection.

Key highlights of the EGARA x CityMaaS Partnership:

• Readiness check: The partnership between EGARA and CityMaaS offers operators a readiness check and manual to implement across their business.
• Certification: The partnership offers operators a solution to certify their accessibility offering. This will prove highly important for operators as several gambling regulators have confirmed the regulations are in scope and are already themselves being called to action by accessibility enforcement bodies.
• Audit function: The partnership offers a tailored auditing, reviewing platforms’ accessibility offering, ensuring they reach more customers, more effectively in line with the projected regulations, while ensuring critical features like responsible gaming tools are available to everyone with fairness, transparency and actual protection of all groups.
• ESG and Responsible Leadership: The collaboration offers bespoke advice and training to ensure operators lead— and not just comply—by embedding fairness and inclusion into the core of digital player experiences across all offerings including websites and customer service functions.
• Technical Solution: CityMaaS’s technology incorporates the latest advancements in accessibility, providing a robust and reliable solution for EGARA’s clients in the gambling industry.

Operators and platform providers can begin accessibility readiness assessments now: www.egara.co/contact-us.

Jessica Maier, Co-founder of EGARA said: “Despite its transformative potential to harmonize accessibility standards across the EU, the European Accessibility Act has surprisingly remained underdiscussed within our sector, leaving many organisations unprepared for its imminent impact. Through our partnership with CityMaaS, we’re enabling operators to rapidly close any existing gaps to reduce legal and reputational risk, and ultimately make gambling platforms more inclusive and sustainable, bolstering responsible gaming efforts and providing opportunity for sustainable growth.

“CityMaaS is thrilled to collaborate with EGARA to bring our state-of-the-art accessibility solutions to the gambling sector. Together, we are setting a new standard for accessibility and user experience,” said Rene Perkins, CEO of CityMaaS.