Gambling Commission Widens Illegal Market Crackdown to Money and Assets

^{Victoria Square House in Birmingham, the Gambling Commission’s headquarters. The regulator says it is widening its illegal market enforcement beyond website takedowns. (Photo: Bs0u10e01 / Wikimedia Commons)}

The Gambling Commission has said it will increasingly “follow the money” in its fight against illegal gambling, moving beyond website takedowns to target the payments, advertising and assets that keep unlicensed operators running. The regulator confirmed the shift at the start of Illegal Gambling Awareness Week, which runs from 9 to 13 November.

The Commission said it briefed UK industry leaders last week and international partners at the International Association of Gaming Regulators (IAGR) conference last month. Sue Young, the Commission’s executive director of operations, set out the approach in the announcement.

What the Commission Said

“If you run an illegal gambling operation, we are coming after you, your business and your money,” Young said in the announcement. “We’ve already shown we can take down and disrupt individual websites and now we’re going further.”

“By widening the net and focusing beyond removing websites our mission is to hit illegal operators on all sides.”

Young said the work means interfering with illegal operators’ whole business models, disrupting their payments, hindering their advertising and stopping them from obtaining the games and sportsbooks they rely on. The regulator is also still working with law enforcement to seize cash at illegal land-based gambling operations.

The Numbers Behind the Shift

Since January, the Commission has referred more than £40m of suspected criminal funds to partner agencies for potential asset freezing. In the 2026/27 financial year so far it has issued about 1,000 cease and desist notices to illegal operators and referred 2,200 websites for disruption action.

The search engine figures are larger still. The Commission has referred 7.8 million URLs to search engines, and about 3 million have been removed from search results. Referrals jumped from 147,721 in the first quarter to 7.7 million in the second, an increase of more than 5,000%.

That scale follows the extra funding the regulator received for enforcement. Last year the Commission reported that it had disrupted 1,134 illegal sites as a £26m boost arrived, and the latest figures show the volume of referrals climbing sharply since.

Awareness Week and Industry Role

Illegal Gambling Awareness Week is a new international campaign led by the IAGR. It aims to raise awareness of the risks of illegal gambling and to strengthen collaboration between regulators, industry and law enforcement around the world.

The Commission said it will keep working with law enforcement, the gambling industry, technology companies and the financial sector. That includes intelligence sharing, early reporting, data and evidence support and strategic engagement, which it described as critical to delivering long-term impact.

The week began after the Commission published new findings last week that it said provide further evidence to support enforcement. Earlier research on the topic, including a study into consumer habits in the illegal online market, has fed into how the regulator targets its resources.

For licensed operators the message is that enforcement will increasingly touch the payment and affiliate chain around illegal sites. The Commission has not set out new rules in this announcement, and it said its wider efforts build on disruption activity already carried out with its partners.