Shocking UK Stats Expose the Truth About Black Market Gambling

The UK’s Gambling Commission has been in hot water many times in recent memory for its heavy-handed approach to managing local gambling laws. It has been pointed out on many occasions that this draconic approach to regulation will drive away both licensed operators and encourage players to frequent unlicensed operators.

In response to these valid concerns, the Commission is on record referring to the dangers of a growing black market as "being overstated".

The Proof is in the Pudding

The Betting and Gaming Council was not happy to take the Commission at its word and engaged with a leading research team, Yield Sec, to investigate the matter during the FIFA World Cup. Their findings were shocking!

Ismail Vali, Founder and CEO at Yield Sec, said:

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“This trend of increased illegal gambling activity during prominent sporting events reflects the ever-present threat that illegal operators pose to players and the audience.”

Here are some of the primary data points they extrapolated:

Unlicensed operator visitors increased from 80,000 to 250,000.
Traffic to website advertising to players on self-exclusion lists increased by 83%.
In 60 days, more than 64,000 at-risk players joined unlicensed gambling sites.

The report by Yield Sec also noted that while it can take up to 12 minutes to sign up and place a bet at a licensed online casino, it can take as little as 30 seconds to accomplish the same task at a black market operator.

The UKGC Needs To Be Held Accountable

The sad reality is that while the UKGC has been hyper-focused on penalising licensed operators and policing their activities, it has taken its eye off the unregulated market.

Michael Dugher, CEO of the Betting and Gaming Council, said:

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“This research exposes the dire threat the growing unsafe, unregulated black market poses to punters. There has been too much complacency about the threat of the black market. Rather than dismissing the problem, the regulator and the Government need to tread extremely carefully and resist blanket, intrusive affordability checks at low levels that push even more punters to these dangerous sites.”

According to a separate report by international auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, the use of unlicensed gambling sites has doubled year after year in Great Britain. Their best estimates place the total revenue in the billions of pounds sterling. This is an astronomical figure that does not benefit the local market since these companies do not pay licensing fees or taxes to the United Kingdom.

The BGCs position is that it is time the UKGC begins to act in the best interests of the regulated gambling sector. An industry that adds more than £7 billion to the economy each year and creates more than 100,000 jobs.