A new report from Yield Sec shows that illegal gambling operators account for about 9% of the online sector’s revenue generated from UK customers, equating to about £379m ($511m) for the first six months of 2025. The technical intelligence firm spotted over 530 illegal platforms that actively targeted people in the UK. The figures are more than triple the 2% share that these illicit operators had in 2022.
many of these sites target people who are underage or are self-excluded through GamStop
The Campaign for Fairer Gambling (CFG) commissioned the report, which has claimed that many of these sites target people who are underage or are self-excluded through GamStop. It believes these factors are the main reasons, rather than affordability checks or bet size restrictions.
UK Gambling Commission Executive Director Tim Miller provided some figures regarding the presence of black-market operators during a speech on Wednesday at the Peers for Gambling Reform Summit. He noted that the regulator has issued 334 cease and desists to operators and advertisers and flagged 45,674 URLs to search engines, which led to the removal of over 30,605 of them. It has also disrupted 235 platforms by geo-blocking or causing enough hassle that they were taken down.
