The Gambling Commission has marked the start of its first Illegal Gambling Awareness Week with a defiant message to unlicensed operators: we’re coming for you.
In a statement to mark the inaugural edition of the scheme, the regulator’s director of executive operations – Sue Young – warned that they planned to ‘interfere with illegal operators’ whole business models’, having referred more than £40 million of suspected criminal funding to authorities already.
The stark claim comes against the backdrop of the burgeoning black market sector, with the Gambling Commission’s own research – published last month – confirming that the number of illegal sites available to UK punters had increased from 392 to 586 in the past two years.
Following the Money
Unveiling its new strategies during Illegal Gambling Awareness Week (IGAW), the UKGC has pledged to ‘follow the money’ and go beyond simply disrupting illegal betting sites.
They have issued more than 1,000 cease and desist orders to operators already this year, with nearly eight million URLs removed from search engines.
That focus will now extend to tracking the flow of cash and assets that ultimately make being an unlicensed bookmaker or casino provider an attractive proposition to the criminal fraternity.
The inaugural IGAW has been the platform for the regulator to reaffirm their commitment to eliminating the illegal sector. Sue Young commented:
“If you run an illegal gambling operation, we are coming after you, your business and your money.
“We’ve already shown we can take down and disrupt individual websites and now we’re going further. That means us interfering with illegal operators’ whole business models, disrupting their payments, hindering their advertising and stopping them from obtaining the games and sportsbooks they so heavily rely on.”
This more expansive approach, the Commission hopes, will ‘better protect consumers, support legitimate licensed operators and tackle criminality linked to illegal gambling to build a crime-free market.’
Engagement On the Rise
Although some great strides have been made, and the regulator is clearly determined to make a further impact, there is still a lot of work to do in clamping down on the UK gambling black market.
As noted already, the number of illegal sites that are readily accessible to UK punters has increased – that’s per the Gambling Commission’s own data. And that’s only the operators they are aware of… many more are springing up and taking bets via WhatsApp and social media.
Still some 4% of all gambling-related Google searches lead to an illegal site; that might seem like a small percentage, but in the context of thousands of search results is clearly still a significant problem.
And ‘engagement’ with unlicensed operators, to use the regulator’s own definition, was 12% higher in September 2026 than it was over the moving average of the prior three months.
The Gambling Commission has attempted to model the reasons why punters access the black market. According to their research, two groups – Social Explorers and Accidental Tourists – happen upon unlicensed sites without necessarily meaning to. In fact, they might not even be aware that the platform they are using is even illegal.
But it’s the other two groups of punters – Self Excluders and Skilled Advocates – that present the regulator with their biggest challenge. Self Excluders are those that have signed up to a programme like GAMSTOP, which prevents them from accessing licensed sites that are part of the scheme. Using the black market, they can circumnavigate the block.
And Skilled Advocates are those that willingly use illegal operators, whether to avoid having to provide verification documents during sign-up or any kind of background check on their financial history and status.
This latter group can be disgruntled punters frustrated at the regulatory landscape in the UK… or a criminal element looking to launder money in an ‘under the radar’ way.
Contrasting Picture
Elsewhere, the International Federation of Horseracing Authority (IFHA) has conducted their own research into the UK’s illegal gambling sector.
And their findings are rather starker than those presented by the UKGC…
They found that the number of monthly visits to unlicensed betting sites had jumped from 1.8 million a month in 2022 to a staggering 25 million in 2025.
And the IFHA’s analysis revealed that around one in five visits to a gambling site in the UK now goes to a black market firm – almost a complete contrast to the picture painted by the regulator.
The IFHA identified 32 illegal operators that take bets on horse racing only. They alone recorded seven visits per 100 to licensed sites between January and July 2026.
Brant Dunshea, the head of the British Horseracing Authority (BHA), recognised the Gambling Commission’s work. But he warned:
“We will be sharing these findings with Government and urging it to work with us to keep bettors within the regulated market.”