Lynnae is a journalist covering the intersection of technology, culture, and gambling. She has more than five years of experience as a writer and editor, with bylines at SlashGear and MakeUseOf. On the iGaming side,...
Read Full BioThe UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has published the first in a new series of reports about the country’s illegal gambling market. The study, “Illegal online gambling: Consumer awareness, drivers and motivations,” gives readers a clearer picture of the illegal gambling market in Great Britain, including who’s most likely to visit an unlicensed operator and why they’re drawn to them.
Andrew Rhodes, Chief Executive of the Gambling Commission, said research like this is needed, adding: “The illegal online market is unsafe, unfair and criminal — that is why the Commission has invested heavily in this area in recent years.”
Rhodes went on to say that: “To be even more effective in combating the illegal market, it’s vital that we have both a deep and broad understanding of how it operates, and this insight is a crucial step in building that understanding in a very complex area to research.”
The report comes just a year after Frontier Economics published a study that found 8.1% of British gamblers who’d participated in the survey, around one in 12 players, or the equivalent of 1.5 million people, had used a black market site or social media platform in the last 12 months.
This week’s release of the UKGC report comes amid renewed parliamentary pressure from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Gambling Reform, which is pushing for tougher laws to protect people from gambling-related harm.
Gamblers Often Don’t Realize Sites are Illegal
One of the most striking findings of the report is that when gamblers land on these sites, they are unable to tell whether they’re licensed or unlicensed. One respondent said, “I didn’t realise these sites might be unlicensed. I didn’t even think about their being UK-based or otherwise.”
The research found that many players who believed they’d never used an illegal operator later described behavior that suggested otherwise. When asked to name an illegal site, very few participants were able to do so, with some even naming licensed companies.
The Commission concluded that there appears to be “…a disconnect in individuals who gamble online, between the perceived importance of operators being licensed, and their understanding of whether or not operators hold this license, and how this can be verified.”
Most gamblers understand that it’s important to gamble with licensed operators; however, many don’t know how to verify whether a site actually has one. This lack of knowledge makes it easy for players to stumble into the illegal market unwittingly.
It’s not just the U.K. that’s experiencing high levels of black market activity; a recent report shows that illegal gambling dominates the U.S. market, as well.
What Comes Next
This report is just the beginning. The UKGC will release three more installments in a phased series that will take an in-depth look at the illegal gambling market in the U.K.
The future reports are set to cover the following themes: engagement data and trends, enforcement and disruption activity, highlighting the work of the Illegal Markets Team, and the challenges of estimating the size of the illegal online market in Great Britain.
The Commission has also rolled out an Illegal Gambling Hub, where the public can learn how to identify unlicensed sites, read about enforcement actions, and access its research. Going forward, the UKGC says it’s considering a consumer-facing campaign “with the objective of raising awareness within targeted groups of consumers of the risks of accessing and using the illegal market.”
