The Gambling Commission (GC) has stated that just over 1,000 illegal gambling websites were accessed by consumers in Great Britain between May 2024 and July 2025.
As part of the regulator’s ongoing research into the black market, fresh data was released today, 30 September, providing further insights into the work undertaken so far.
The study focused solely on illegal online gambling websites, with unlicensed apps, Telegram casinos, novel products and land-based operations not being explored.
The research involved search terms around illegal gambling motivations, as previously determined by the Gambling Commission, followed by the removal of legal websites from the results.
This left researchers with illegal operator sites and affiliates promoting unlicensed entities. Crypto casino search terms were added in December 2024 to expand the reach.
As of July 2025, the GC identified 477 affiliates and 535 illegal sites that were accessible to British consumers.
“With some active websites being disrupted and closed down, and with new websites entering the market, over the period monitored, just over 1,000 unique illegal gambling websites were accessed by consumers in Great Britain,” the regulator noted.
However, the GC said that over the reporting period, the data did not indicate “sustained growth” in the black market, but that work would be ongoing to disrupt the sector.
Determining engagement
Using Similarweb data, the GC determined that at an upper bound, there were 24 million visits to illegal sites in June. A bear case was 16 million, with the mid-point being 20 million.
The visits, at the upper bound of estimations (which the GC said was a 95% confidence interval), peaked in November 2024 at 55 million.
The average time consumers spent on these sites sat around six minutes throughout the research period
The GC said that this data had likely not captured individuals using VPNs to access sites. This could increase web traffic estimates by between 25% and 51%.
The report read: “These findings give useful insights into consumers use of VPNs specifically for gambling, but it should be noted that it is based on a relatively small sample and may not be representative of all individuals who use illegal gambling websites.
“Because of this, a 95% confidence interval can be constructed to reflect the uncertainty around the findings from the small sample. This results in between 19% and 34% of individuals using a VPN all the time, or specifically to visit gambling websites.”
Conclusions and outlook
The GC then took those data points and combined them to produce a ‘total time spent on illegal websites by consumers in minutes’ metric, which it referred to in the study as an “estimated engagement”.
For July, this figure was placed at 233 million minutes on the upper bound, and 152 million in the mid-point.
Tim Livesley, head of the GC’s data innovation hub, said that while collecting data on the black market was “challenging”, it helped paint a clearer picture of the illegal sector.
He noted: “One striking observation though, is that we cannot see any evidence of an overall pattern of growth. We are often told this market is constantly growing – and definitive claims are made about what is driving this – but sustained growth is not visible in our data.
“This finding – which we are still treating as indicative – should certainly not be taken to mean we don’t believe there is still a serious problem that we will continue to tackle. This market presents a risk to consumers, and we will use data to work harder and smarter to disrupt it.”
Livesley added that further improvements to data gathering would be made, as well as opening the door to collaboration with licensed operators to verify the report’s accuracy.
The post “Sustained” black market growth questioned in Gambling Commission report first appeared on EGR Intel.
Regulator says data obtained between May 2024 and July 2025 shows there is still a “serious problem” that needs tackling, as it asks licensed operators to support verification of estimates
The post “Sustained” black market growth questioned in Gambling Commission report first appeared on EGR Intel.