Gambling Commission: 0.6% of Britons Used Illegal Gambling Sites in the Past Four Weeks

^{Victoria Square House in Birmingham, home of the Gambling Commission. The regulator has published new survey estimates of how many Britons use illegal gambling websites. (Photo: Bs0u10e01 / Wikimedia Commons)}

The Gambling Commission has published fresh estimates of how many people in Great Britain engage with illegal gambling websites, putting the figure at 0.6% of adults over the past four weeks. The data, released on 5 November, comes from the Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB) and sits alongside an updated index the regulator will use to track trends over time.

It is the Commission's latest attempt to measure a market that is hard to see from the outside. The survey uses a set of questions designed to work out whether someone is likely to be on an illegal site, whether or not they realise it.

What the Survey Found

Across the whole adult population, including people who do not gamble, 94.4% of respondents showed no sign of using an illegal gambling website. A further 0.6% had engaged with one in the past four weeks, and another 0.4% had done so in the past 12 months but not in the past four weeks.

The picture changes among people who gamble online. Of those who played online in the past 12 months, 2.5% had engaged with an illegal site in the past four weeks, and a further 1.5% had done so earlier in the year. That is a small cohort, but a visibly larger share than the headline population figure.

Engagement was higher among men than women. Younger adults were more likely to be involved over the 12-month window, particularly those aged 18 to 24, while 25 to 34-year-olds were more prominent in the four-week figures.

The Regulator's Reading

Sue Young, the Commission's Executive Director for Operations, said engagement with the illegal market looks low and stable across the population, but not for everyone. "While engagement with the illegal market from an overall population perspective appears low and stable from these indicators, there is a cohort of online gamblers who use these sites," she said in the public statement.

"Research suggests those consumers who use illegal operators are more likely to experience harm."

Young added that the new data will help make sure activity to protect consumers is informed by the best available evidence. The Commission says it will keep working across government, industry, technology and financial services to disrupt crime, in line with its stated aim to "kick crime out of gambling".

Part of a Wider Evidence Push

The figures follow a run of Commission research on the illegal market. Recently, a banking data study found illegal gambling often sits alongside licensed play, which showed how customers move between the two. Earlier work had already probed consumer habits in the illegal online market.

The Commission says the new survey findings complement its recent publications on why consumers use illegal operators, and that motivations are varied and cannot be explained by any single factor. The research was published alongside the Commission's CEO Briefing event, where industry leaders discussed progress, emerging priorities and the latest evidence on illegal gambling.

The regulator has also reported on enforcement, including how it has delisted 266,667 illegal gambling URLs. The updated index is designed to show whether that kind of disruption is changing how many consumers reach illegal sites, giving the Commission a way to judge the impact of its own work.

For licensed operators, the findings are a reminder that the illegal market remains small in population terms but concentrated in an active online audience. The Commission has not announced new rules alongside the data, and the next GSGB releases will show whether the four-week figure holds steady.