How Agcom twice fined slots streamer Karlo Carlini

The Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni (Agcom) twice ordered a Malta company to pay for illegal gambling advertising on the Spike slots channels. The sums, disclosed in the injunctions, are €700,000 on July 27, 2022 and €1,595,841.72 on February 6, 2024.

Karlo Carlini, the Italian who streams as Spike, is not the name on either payment order. Investigate Europe reported on February 24, 2026 that Top Ads Ltd, the company Agcom sanctioned, is run by him, and that both fines were being appealed and remained unpaid, according to the authority.

What the orders say about Karlo Carlini

Agcom fined the slots streams twice by sanctioning the company it treated as the owner of the channels, not by naming Karlo Carlini on the payment line. Delibera 288/22/CONS, adopted on July 27, 2022, orders Top Ads Ltd of Gzira, Malta, company number C94367, to pay €700,000. The authority counted seven breaches: five YouTube channels checked on February 24, 2022, and the site spikeslot.com on two days, March 10 and March 11, 2022. Each breach was set at a disclosed €50,000 and then doubled to a disclosed €100,000 because of the volume of videos, views and subscribers. Seven times €100,000 is the disclosed €700,000. Delibera 37/24/CONS, adopted on February 6, 2024, orders the same company to pay a disclosed €1,595,841.72 for Spike Slot on TikTok, Twitch, Twitter, Telegram and the site. Investigate Europe, on February 24, 2026, reported the second figure as €1.6 million and wrote that both fines were under appeal and unpaid, according to the authority. The orders themselves do not record a receipt.

We read both injunctions. The 2022 text redacts the sole director, described there as the person who also made the videos and who received periodic personal fees from Google through YouTube. The fee is redacted. Delibera 50/24/CONS, an order against Google rather than against Top Ads, spells the creator as Carlo Carlini, known as Spike. Investigate Europe spells him Karlo. Neither document is a payslip, and neither says the fines were paid.

How the 2022 Spike channels produced a €700,000 fine

A report reached Agcom on December 2, 2021 about YouTube videos that showed online-casino wins and promoted gambling without comparing licensed offers. On March 14, 2022 the authority notified contestation 04/22/DSDI to Top Ads at 240 Msida Road, 3A/4A, Gzira, VAT MT26852019, as holder of five YouTube channels and of spikeslot.com.

On the February 24, 2022 check the order discloses each channel. SPIKE had 76,400 subscribers and 431 videos. SPIKE - Slot Machine da Bar e VLT had 66,600 subscribers and 131 videos. The Best of SPIKE had 30,400 subscribers and 88 videos. SPIKE International Gambling Channel had 7,800 subscribers and seven videos. SPIKE - Slot Online had 31,300 subscribers and 64 videos. Those subscriber counts sum to 212,500 subscriptions, estimated from the order's own figures, not 212,500 separate people. The video counts sum to 721 the same way.

Agcom found these were not neutral explainers. The February 24, 2022 assessment, as delibera 288/22/CONS records it, found the creator playing a cash-prize game, "suggerendo addirittura le modalità per poter accedere a determinati bonus." That is, the videos suggested how to obtain bonuses. The sanction paragraph dates the site checks to March 10 and March 11, 2022, with the same videos plus banners and links. Another recital says March 9. The €700,000 uses seven breaches either way.

Article 9 of decree-law 87 of July 12, 2018, the decreto dignità, bans cash-prize gambling ads. The penalty is 20% of value, never under a disclosed €50,000. Turnover and YouTube revenue are redacted, so Agcom doubled that floor to a disclosed €100,000 for each breach. The order is that disclosed €700,000 within 30 days, plus removal.

How Agcom built the 2024 fine

A Guardia di Finanza report arrived on February 20, 2023, naming Spike and attaching 47 Twitch videos from SPIKE Slot. On May 12, 2023 Agcom and the Guardia di Finanza inspected Vincitù S.r.l., which delibera 37/24/CONS calls the holder of an Italian online-gaming concession. The inspection found two Top Ads contracts with VinciTu. One, signed July 26, 2021, covered wincasino.it. The other, signed September 1, 2022, covered betroom.it. The order discloses €1,659,736.21 received for that work. It does not split the sum.

Vincitù is the operator in the file. On October 14, 2026, ADM's award determination signed on September 17, 2025 still lists Vincitù S.r.l. for one remote-gaming concession. That is not a finding that wincasino.it or betroom.it is the brand on the concession today. The order is describing the 2023 contracts.

Contestazione 15/23/DSDI, notified on August 11, 2023, covered Twitch, TikTok, Twitter, Telegram, YouTube channel Spike Slot 2022, and the site. The TikTok URL sits on an account written as @bet4boys. Agcom later dropped the YouTube limb. Someone else, the company said, had opened that channel. The authority accepted it. The other limbs stayed.

Volume is why each part was tripled. The channels had separate catalogues, and the 2022 order had not cleared them. Top Ads had asked for a disclosed €50,000 once, or a disclosed €300,000 for six breaches at the floor. Different users on different days defeated that.

Revenue figures were refused. On November 13, 2023 Top Ads said it could not isolate Italian income. Malta's broadcasting authority replied on January 15, 2024 that Top Ads was not a body it authorises. The site fine did not need that reply. The VinciTu contract was already on file.

The defence the authority rejected

Top Ads told Agcom it was a Maltese software and marketing company, and that the videos informed viewers about operators holding an ADM concession. The clips were ironic demonstrations, it said, with 18+ marks and responsible-gambling notices, an alternative to betting rather than an invitation. The English-language channel, it added, sat outside the Italian ban because players in Italy could not open the sites it showed.

"al gioco è più facile perdere che vincere, cioè, il motore di pagamento dei giochi di casinò è concepito per restituire alla lunga un importo inferiore a quello giocato, quindi se nella singola partita può capitare di vincere, alla lunga è praticamente impossibile"

Top Ads Ltd, as recorded in its defence in delibera 288/22/CONS, describing warnings it said the Spike videos carried (delibera 288/22/CONS)

Read in English, the games are built to pay back less than is wagered, so a single win does not last. Top Ads offered the sentence as proof the videos discouraged play. Agcom disagreed. Pointing viewers to bonuses, and placing banners on the site, was still advertising. A 60-second warning added after the contestation reduced the harm, the order says, and did not end it. Weekly uploads continued.

In 2024 the company argued that a name and a face can be uploaded by anyone with an email address, that five Spike channels were already dark, and that the site had been cleaned. Agcom kept TikTok, Twitch, Twitter, Telegram and the site. It agreed with the company only on the later YouTube channel.

Appeals, the platforms, and the loss the orders skip

Top Ads had 60 days to appeal to the Tribunale Amministrativo Regionale del Lazio and 30 days to pay, with a right to ask for instalments. The orders do not record a payment. On November 7, 2024 Agcom said the same court had confirmed both sanctions. Judgments 17029/2024 and 17030/2024, published on October 1, 2024, upheld the 2022 and 2024 orders against what the press release calls the same content creator. Investigate Europe, on February 24, 2026, still described both fines as under appeal and unpaid, according to the authority. A confirmation is not a receipt. Nothing here says Carlini paid. Nothing here says the company paid.

Google was fined separately. Delibera 50/24/CONS of February 21, 2024 records that delibera 275/22/CONS of July 19, 2022 ordered Google to pay a disclosed €750,000 and to remove the Spike videos then in dispute. The later order adds a disclosed €450,000, or a disclosed €150,000 for each of three 2023 checks of Spike Slot 2022. Opened on September 1, 2022, that channel had more than 50,000 subscribers and more than 23 million views. Google produced its take and the creator's share. Neither sum is printed. Twenty percent of Google's revenue was under a disclosed €50,000, so the floor was tripled. On December 21, 2023 the partner contract was with Milimilo com doo in Montenegro, not Top Ads. The named creator is Carlo Carlini.

Investigate Europe also reported a wider December 2023 pair of platform fines, €2.2 million for Google and €900,000 for Twitch, for hosting illegal gambling ads across many channels, not Spike alone. A separate Fair Stake piece follows the EU court case on Google's Italian gambling-ad fine. YouTube, the investigation wrote, deleted the SpikeSlot channel after being contacted. By publication, it said, Carlini appeared to be streaming gambling elsewhere. None of the streamers it named answered its questions.

What the orders price is the advertising, not a viewer's loss. There is no wagering total and no return-to-player figure in either injunction, so there is no honest expected-loss sum for a Spike session. The company's own defence already states the direction of the edge: over time the games return less than is wagered. One filmed win does not reverse that. The decreto dignità, and Agcom's page on the ban, exist to counter gambling disorder, above all for minors and for people already harmed by play.

"Many young people will see themselves in streamers who create a community of trust and shared values."

Dr Elvira Bolat, associate professor of digital marketing at Bournemouth University, to Investigate Europe, published February 24, 2026 (Investigate Europe, archived)

Audience size in the 2022 order is concrete: tens of thousands of subscriptions on channels Agcom had classed as Google partner channels. Investigate Europe described a tighter bond than a count. One commenter thanked Spike for company during a hospital stay. Another said he seemed present, not behind a screen. That trust is useful to an advertiser. It is also the risk.

Operators split in two. VinciTu is an Italian concessionaire in the 2024 order, and Vincitù S.r.l. is on the ADM list checked on October 14, 2026, so its players have the national self-exclusion register. Investigate Europe reported that Carlini also promoted My Empire, Frumzi and Funbet, and called them unregulated in Europe. They are not on that ADM list. Other European registers were not checked for this piece. A site with no domestic licence does not offer the self-exclusion the Italian concession does.

"You register an account on each casino you have to push, then the casino will provide a real money balance, so we play with their money."

Greg, an anonymous affiliate quoted by Investigate Europe, published February 24, 2026 (Investigate Europe, archived)

Greg's sentence is a claim about a method, not a finding that Spike's balances were house money. Investigate Europe says there is no evidence every streamer it named knew the sites were unlicensed, or was paid from player losses. Neither Carlini nor Vincitù has said, in these orders or in that investigation, whether the on-screen balances were his. Until one of them does, that fact is unknown.

FAQ

Did Agcom fine Karlo Carlini personally?

Both payment orders name Top Ads Ltd, Malta company number C94367. Carlini is not the debtor on the page. Investigate Europe reported on February 24, 2026 that he runs the company, which is a reported identification, not a line in either injunction. Delibera 50/24/CONS does name Carlo Carlini, known as Spike, and records that the YouTube partner contract Google described was with Milimilo com doo rather than with Top Ads. The disclosed €700,000 and €1,595,841.72 stay company orders.

Have the two fines been paid?

Payment was due in 30 days. No receipt is attached. Agcom said on November 7, 2024 that the Lazio court confirmed both orders. Investigate Europe reported on February 24, 2026 that the authority still treated the fines as appealed and unpaid. These sources do not say Carlini paid, or that Top Ads did.

Were the Spike videos played with his own money?

Neither order says the balances were Carlini's. Top Ads called the clips demonstrations. Greg, the anonymous affiliate in the Investigate Europe investigation, claimed that a casino in this model supplies a real-money balance and that the streamer plays with the operator's money. That claim is his, about a method, and it is not a finding about Spike. Carlini has not said, on this record, whose funds were on screen. Vincitù has not said it either. Unknown is the accurate word.

Why do some reports say €1.6 million?

Delibera 37/24/CONS sets a disclosed €1,595,841.72. Investigate Europe's €1.6 million is that sum, reported in rounded form, not a second order. An estimated €600,000 is four tripled floors. The disclosed site slice is €995,841.72. Added, they match the injunction. No line in either Top Ads order replaces that total with a round figure.

These files answer a narrower question than the headline sounds like. They show how a regulator prices illegal gambling advertising on channels that carry a slots streamer's name. They do not show what that streamer is paid to play. For the second question, on a different creator and in his own words, see how much casinos pay Togi, according to what he has said.

This article is informational analysis only and is not gambling or financial advice. Figures are as attributed in the text.

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