The Betting and Gaming Council has pushed back firmly against suggestions that the UK’s illegal gambling market poses only a minor threat to consumers and the wider industry.
BGC CEO Grainne Hurst responded to ongoing debate this week by writing in PoliticsHome, insisting that the black market “is not a marginal issue” regardless of its current relative size.
The dispute was sparked by research conducted by Gaming Compliance International for Derek Webb’s Campaign for Fairer Gambling, which suggested illegal operators account for less than 10% of the UK’s online gambling market.
NEXT.io published the findings, which showed the black market generated £800m in gross gambling revenue for 2025 compared with the legal sector’s £8bn yield.
To Webb, that 91% channelisation figure means “the unregulated sector has less impact in GB than in any other major jurisdiction globally,” a framing the BGC has flatly rejected.
Hurst did not challenge the 91% estimate itself, but attacked the conclusion that this makes the black market argument overstated, writing bluntly: “They are wrong.”
She made her case on both consumer protection and economic grounds, pointing to the BGC’s five-point plan to tackle illegal gambling, which was published earlier in June.
Hurst stated that “whether the black market accounts for 5%, 9% or more,” policymakers must act “before it grows larger still,” demanding the government takes the threat seriously now.
Drawing a sharp distinction between legal and illegal operators, she wrote: “One contributes to society through jobs, tax revenues and support for sport. The other simply extracts money from British consumers while avoiding responsibility.”
On the question of player harm, Hurst referenced an NHS health survey finding that the rate of problem gambling among UK adults stood at 0.7%, adding: “Millions of adults enjoy betting safely each month, but we know gambling can cause harm for a small number of individuals and families.”
The Gambling Commission’s own annual survey, released in October 2025, found that 2.7% of adults aged 18 and over scored 8 or higher on the Problem Gambling Severity Index, a figure the BGC has previously questioned for reliability.
The BGC commented last year that “our members are concerned these findings may be unreliable because there is a significant risk GSGB overstates gambling participation and gambling-related harm.”
H2 Gambling Capital measured total money staked with illegal UK operators at £17bn for 2025, producing a gross gambling yield of £685m, figures Hurst cited directly in her PoliticsHome piece.
More concerning still is H2’s forecast that staked amounts could nearly double to over £33bn by 2028, which Hurst warns could mean almost one fifth of all online stakes flowing to unregulated black market operators.
There does appear to be a modest consensus between industry and reform campaigners on the current size of the illegal market and its general direction of growth, even if predictions on future scale diverge sharply.
At a recent House of Lords liaison committee session, Baroness Twycross represented the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and told peers that the regulated sector is “what we’d like to see grow,” identifying black market activity as the government’s primary concern.
The BGC is particularly focused on keeping the black market threat visible as the Gambling Commission continues to review proposals for financial risk assessments, a policy area the industry views as carrying serious migration risk.
When sharing H2’s research, the BGC highlighted industry fears that “intrusive checks, higher taxes and tighter regulation could drive even more customers away from regulated operators and towards dangerous illegal gambling sites.”
The Gambling Commission subsequently reported a delay in its financial risk assessment review, with a spokesperson telling NEXT.io that the board “was presented with an extensive evidence base but has not yet fully completed its assessment of that evidence.”
Hurst closed with a direct warning against “arguments that minimise the risks posed by criminal operators or dismiss concerns about consumer migration to the black market,” signalling the BGC has no intention of letting the issue fade from policy discussions.
