Visits to Illegal Betting Sites Surge in England

According to an analysis published on Friday by the IFHA, visits to illegal betting sites used in England have increased sharply since 2021. The study examined 301 sites, including 74 licensed and 227 unlicensed ones. In the first seven months of 2026, unlicensed sites received 19.4 visits for every 100 visits to licensed sites.

The number of monthly unique visitors to unlicensed sites rose from 1.8 million in 2022 to over 25 million in 2025, a fourteen-fold increase. Over the same period, traffic to licensed sites fell by 34 percent. In the first seven months of 2026, traffic to unlicensed sites declined somewhat but remained higher than in any of the periods examined.

On unlicensed sites, the average visit duration rose from 5 minutes 38 seconds at the end of 2024 to 7 minutes 25 seconds. The number of pages viewed per visit increased from 5.19 to 6.98. On licensed sites, the average duration fell from 11 minutes 18 seconds to 9 minutes 57 seconds.

The report warns that the shift of betting activity overseas could affect the funding and integrity of horse racing. In a separate comparison, the report noted that 32 unlicensed sites accepting bets on British horse racing received 6.8 visits for every 100 visits to licensed sites between January and July 2026. At the end of 2021, this ratio was 0.97.

A survey published last week by the Gambling Commission found that 2.5 percent of Great Britain adults who had gambled online in the past year had used an unlicensed betting site in the four weeks before the survey. The survey was based on 3,569 people who gambled online this year, drawn from 14,257 online respondents.