Most people who pay illegal sites also gamble on licensed sites

The UK Gambling Commission published its first black market study, based on open banking data, on 28 October. According to payment records, people who paid illegal sites had problem gambling scores far higher than customers of licensed sites.

The scope of the study is narrow. Payments were classified using a payment firm's categorization tool, and transactions with a gambling probability above 50 percent were counted as gambling. Only accounts that support open banking were included, cryptocurrency payments were left out, and the method can only capture some of the illegal operators.

The most notable finding concerns behavior. 91 percent of people who made repeat payments to illegal sites continued to gamble with licensed operators. There was no significant decline in licensed transactions after the first illegal payment. This picture suggests that illegal gambling is not replacing licensed play but is being added to it.

According to research the Commission published on 20 October 2026, one route into the illegal market is searching for 'non-GamStop' sites. The study, conducted from 1 to 15 May 2026, included 4,007 people who had gambled online in the past four weeks. The Commission also acknowledged that the panel data does not have national representative power and cannot measure the size of the market.

The report arrived during Budget week. The sector has been dealing with the 40 percent online gaming duty in place since April 2026. The Betting and Gaming Council argues that if taxes rise to 25 percent, nearly 9,000 jobs and around 1,000 betting shops and casinos would be at risk. H2 Gambling Capital, meanwhile, estimates that by 2031, one in every five pounds deposited into online betting could go to illegal operators.