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What is Golden Sphinx?
Speaking on behalf of the government, Van Bruggen said: “Meta, especially as one of the parties, but also Google, is really open to this conversation.”
She said the government would receive a report every six months on illegal gambling advertising across these platforms. She insisted the issue should also be dealt with at an EU level, through the Digital Services Act.
Candidates from the VVD party urged the government to take a “harder stance” against these big tech platforms.
What is Golden Sphinx?
Detectives noted that cellphone records show the pair traveled frequently throughout Central and Southern Illinois, and investigators are working to determine if they are connected to additional unsolved break-ins.
The arrests come amid a surge in burglaries targeting Illinois’ vast network of nearly 50,000 video gaming terminals.
Illinois Gaming Board data obtained earlier this year by the Chicago Sun-Times revealed that 502 gaming-related burglaries had been reported through June 22—already topping the 473 recorded during all of 2025. More than $1.5 million was stolen during the first half of 2026 across more than 100 municipalities.
How to play Golden Sphinx
Helios, a specialist consultant in gambling web traffic, analysed the number of black market websites actively marketing across the 28 markets included in the report, between March and May.
This data was cross referenced with SimilarWeb traffic analysis to confirm the scale of activity. In some markets, the number of illegal sites being actively marketed was much higher than those that have local licences to operate.
This was true of France, Portugal, Netherlands, Germany, Cyprus, Belgium, Spain, among others.
