Gambling Commission Says It Disrupted 1,134 Illegal Sites Last Year as £26m Boost Arrives

^{The Gambling Commission's headquarters at Victoria Square House in Birmingham. Acting Chief Executive Sarah Gardner outlined the regulator's illegal-market work at the IAGR conference in Lima. (Photo: Bs0u10e01 / Wikimedia Commons)}

The Gambling Commission disrupted 1,134 websites in the year to March 2026, its Acting Chief Executive Sarah Gardner has told regulators, and says new Treasury money will let it go further. Gardner set out the figures in a keynote at the International Association of Gaming Regulators (IAGR) conference in Lima, Peru.

The speech, published by the regulator on 21 October, covers the Commission's work against unlicensed operators, the state of the British market and a change of leadership at the top. The text is the speech as drafted and may differ slightly from what was delivered, the Commission noted.

What the Commission Delivered in 2025/26

Gardner said the figures cover the 2025/26 financial year, before extra funding arrived. The Commission issued 741 cease-and-desist letters to advertisers and operators and reported 397,527 URLs to search engines, of which 266,667 were removed within the year.

It also referred 1,068 websites to search engines for delisting, and 1,134 sites were disrupted, meaning they were taken down or geo-blocked. Gardner credited relationships with search firms, payment providers, industry, other regulators and government agencies for the results, rather than large prosecutions.

"Despite having always had powers and a commitment to tackle illegal gambling, in truth, the resources we've often been able to make available to tackle illegal gambling have been much smaller in size than our ambition," Gardner said in the speech. Cases such as Futgalaxy, she added, consumed a large share of resources.

£26m Over Three Years

The Government committed £26 million over three years in last November's Budget to strengthen the Commission's work on illegal gambling. The first £7 million came online in April 2026, Gardner said, and will fund investment in the regulator's tools and a scale-up of operational activity.

She said the Commission's illegal online market remains hard to measure, and that the regulator published new research on the subject on the day of the speech. Gardner also took aim at the supply chain, calling it "unacceptable" for B2B suppliers to serve illegal B2C operators alongside licensed ones.

"Part of IAGR needs to be some self-reflection on what role everyone plays in both problem and solution."

A Market Still Growing, and a Leadership Change

Gardner used the opening of the speech to describe a mature market. Gross gambling yield for the year to March 2026 reached £17.5 billion, up 4.4% on the year before. Remote betting, casino and bingo, mostly online, contributed £8.3 billion, a rise of 6.9%.

The Commission's survey data shows 47% of adults gambled in the past four weeks, or 27% once lottery-only players are excluded. Gardner said those rates have been stable for years, though she warned that "impressions can be misleading" given tax changes and a new Government.

On people, Gardner welcomed Ruth Evans as the new Chair, appointed by the Government for a five-year term, and thanked Charles Counsell for acting as Interim Chair. Sarah Fox has joined to take over much of Tim Miller's portfolio and the regulation of the National Lottery.

The Commission's search for a new chief executive to succeed Andrew Rhodes is under way, Gardner confirmed. She said the Commission does not set, collect or advise on gambling tax, but is monitoring how the rises announced in last year's Budget feed through, as the full impact is still unclear.

Gardner also noted that the Government has signalled an intent to look at how gambling operates in local communities, one more area where the regulator expects change. The speech is available in full on the Gambling Commission's website, alongside its latest research on illegal gambling.