Official language: Turkish
Population: 71,517,100
Currency: Turkish Lira (TRY)

Current Exchange Rate
1 EUR = 2.2131 TRY
1 GBP = 2.4699 TRY
1 USD = 1.4948 TRY

Sports Betting in Turkey
The history of gambling in Turkey is fraught with changing rules about what is allowed and what is not, but the one form of gambling that remains constant is sports betting. This is because the only legal sportsbook in Turkey is run by the state. It's called IDDAA, which means "bet", and it has been operating in its current form since 2004. IDDAA is a weekly fixed betting game, and is mostly about football, offering wagers on hundreds of football matches from leagues around the world. IDDAA tickets can be purchased form more than 4,000 venues across Turkey. This Turkish sportsbook is very successful, taking in more than $1.5 billion each year. It maintains a government-sanctioned monopoly on all sports betting in the country, and no other companies, local or foreign, are allowed to operate sportsbooks in Turkey.

Online Sports Betting in Turkey
In 2007, Turkey passed a law outlawing online gambling. The law has but one exception, and that is for IDDAA, which is allowed to offer its sports internet betting service to Turkish players. The government of Turkey does not intend to give out any more online gambling licenses. They also try to prevent players from using foreign internet sportsbooks by asking Turkish banks to block money transfers to gambling websites, but it is not an effective strategy, and has not really deterred players from betting online. Foreign online sportsbooks also offer a wider range of wagers, better event coverage, and often better odds than IDDAA, so they are an attractive alternative to the official state sportsbook of Turkey when it comes to placing sports bets online.