Derek Webb, founder of the Campaign for Fairer Gambling, believes the licensed sector has significantly overstated the threat posed by illegal gambling operators in Great Britain.
“At under 9% of the total marketplace, the unregulated sector has less impact in GB than in any other major jurisdiction globally,” Webb argued, pushing back against what he sees as exaggerated industry claims.
A new report from Gaming Compliance International, shared exclusively with NEXT.io, estimates the UK black market generated roughly £800m in gross gaming revenue in 2025, compared to £8bn from regulated operators.
That breakdown puts the UK’s online channelisation rate at approximately 91%, meaning the vast majority of gambling activity is occurring within the legal, regulated market.
H2 Gambling Capital separately estimated the gross gambling yield of illegal online betting and gaming sites for 2025 at £685m, a figure broadly consistent with GCI’s own findings.
Comparing H2’s black market estimate against Gambling Commission statistics on the regulated market, which recorded online GGY of roughly £7.8bn excluding lottery, also produces a channelisation rate of over 91%.
Despite these figures, tackling illegal online gambling remains the stated top priority of both the Gambling Commission and the Betting and Gaming Council, with significant resources now being directed at the problem.
Ben Hader, director of research and statistics at the Gambling Commission, acknowledged the difficulty of precise measurement, saying: “As a public body, with a responsibility for generating reliable and credible statistics, it is vital that we communicate uncertainty associated with our research and issue health warnings where necessary.”
Shortly after Grainne Hurst was named BGC chief executive in September 2024, the council published a Frontier Economics study estimating that £2.7bn was being staked on illegal online sites annually.
Hurst described the figure as “shocking” and said it “exposes the unnerving true scale of the growing, unsafe, unregulated gambling black market,” while Frontier Economics associate director Andrew Leicester offered a notably different reading.
Leicester was quoted as saying: “This report shows that most gambling today is done through regulated, visible channels. That is good news.”
Vaughan Lewis, founder and managing director of TEISE Advisory, told a recent House of Lords liaison committee that the UK gambling market is actually contracting rather than expanding in real terms.
Lewis cited UKGC statistics showing the regulated industry’s overall GGY stood at £14bn for the period between October 2013 and September 2014, inclusive of National Lottery sales.
The most recent annual UKGC statistics put GGY for the 2024/25 reporting period at £16.8bn, but Lewis noted that accounting for inflation means the market is smaller in real terms than it was a decade ago.
GCI’s research suggests the online betting and iGaming industry grew by over 7% from 2024 to 2025, but the black market grew at a significantly faster proportional rate than the legal sector.
Overall GGR grew from £8.2bn to £8.8bn between 2024 and 2025, with black market growth recorded as £600m to £800m, representing a 33.3% increase, while the regulated sector expanded by just 5.3%.
The research also identified 812 unregulated platforms targeting UK consumers in 2025, representing 84 more than the previous year, while regulated operators fell by 91 to 2,244.
Online casino was cited as the fastest growing segment, with regulated GGR rising 10% to £5.5bn and the black market equivalent climbing 37.2% to £590m.
H2 Gambling Capital has predicted black market stakes could nearly double from 2025 levels by 2028, a projection the BGC called a “wake up call” for policymakers and regulators.
Webb rejected the framing outright, telling NEXT.io: “The Betting and Gaming Council cannot have it both ways. It dismisses concerns about gambling advertising by demanding definitive proof of harm, yet asks politicians to accept speculative forecasts about future illegal-market growth as fact.”
Hurst has raised concerns about advertising spend, noting that the World Advertising Research Centre now believes total ad spend will grow to £2.2bn for the period between October 2025 and September 2026, with around £1bn stemming from the black market.
Webb contested this picture entirely, saying: “There is no possibility that the unregulated sector will ever generate over 50% of marketing spend, particularly when conventional marketing is not accessible to it.”
He added: “Illegal operators are businesses who make rational commercial decisions and the reality is Britain is a difficult market for them. Established brands dominate, and illegal operators do not have access to mainstream advertising.”
In May 2026, the Gambling Commission created the new role of head of illegal markets and established an Illegal Gambling Task Force, backed by £26m in Treasury funding to tackle the black market directly.
