Illegal gambling is low in the UK, but the real question is how much money is spent

According to data from the Gambling Commission, illegal gambling consumption in the UK is generally low. However, the real question is not how many people use unlicensed and overseas platforms, but how much money those people deposit.

The Commission has been conducting research into illegal gambling activity over the past year. The regulator received an additional £26 million in its 2025 budget for this work. So far, research has mainly focused on how consumers interact with the black market.

According to recent data, participation is generally low. Of those who took part in the Great Britain Gambling Survey (GSGB), 0.6 percent said they had used illegal gambling sites in the last four weeks. Another 0.4 percent said they had used these sites in the last 12 months but not in the last four weeks. For 4.6 percent, there were limited signs of participation over the past year, but little evidence of use in the last four weeks.

Interim Chair Sue Gardner said at the Commission's annual CEO briefing that, as of April 2026, the Commission is confident that around 1 percent of gamblers use illegal sites. According to the Commission, 94.4 percent of gamblers show no signs of gambling on illegal sites.

Gardner said the data is a "big step" in understanding the scale of the illegal market and is the best data available so far. In her view, this data provides a baseline for tracking trends. Sue Young, the Commission's Executive Director of Operations, said, "We want to take crime out of gambling," and noted that illegal gambling poses risks for consumers.