UKGC to spend £26m on tackling Britain's illegal gambling market
The UK Gambling Commission has for the first time set out in detail how it plans to use the additional £26m (€29.9m) allocated by the government to combat the unlicensed market. Tim Miller, UKGC’s Executive Director of Research and Policy, outlined the plans on SBC News’ iGaming Daily podcast, confirming that the funds will be directed across three areas: staffing, technology, and international cooperation.
The Commission received the funding as part of the UK’s November budget. At the same time, the government established the Illegal Gambling Taskforce, created with the involvement of the Minister for Gambling. The scale of the problem the taskforce is being asked to address runs into billions of pounds: SiGMA News previously reported that the UK’s illegal market has approached $21bn, citing H2 Gambling Capital data showing a threefold expansion of the unlicensed segment since 2019.
On the black market
Discussing the risks of illegal gambling, Miller stressed that the UKGC does not have, and cannot have, a single precise figure for the size of the unlicensed market. Relying on any one data source, whether web traffic, financial flows, or the number of active sites, produces a distorted picture. Getting closer to an accurate estimate requires analysing multiple datasets, including consumers’ motivations. This position is consistent with the Commission’s previously published view that a precise calculation is not possible.
So why do players migrate to the illegal sector? Miller identified several reasons:
- Curiosity, fuelled in part by discussions about the black market
- Deliberate targeting of vulnerable and self-excluded players
- Accidental exposure to unlicensed websites
- Restrictions imposed by licensed operators on successful players
“We do know from the research that some people turn to the black market because they have faced restrictions from licensed operators simply because they were successful”
Reactive enforcement and new powers
Miller acknowledged that the current approach to site blocking is largely reactive.
“Enforcement action is a little bit whack-a-mole. Every site that we close down, there will be others that spring up”
He added that within the next few months, the UKGC will gain an additional tool: the power to seek court orders requiring internet service providers to block domains at the network level. He was, however, clear that this would not be a silver bullet.
Miller also noted that the UK’s existing regulatory framework, the Gambling Act 2005, continues to withstand new challenges. Unlike the United States, where the legal status of prediction markets remains contested, the position in Britain is, in his words, “pretty black and white.”
How the funds will be used
The government has provided the Commission with close to €30m to step up enforcement against the unlicensed segment. Miller has previously noted that the investment is justified: in 2025 to 2026, the Commission issued 741 cease-and-desist notices, referred almost 400,000 links for review, and blocked more than 1,000 sites.
On staffing, Miller confirmed that a group of new employees joined the UKGC’s illegal market team over the past 10 days, enabling the Commission to issue more cease-and-desist notices and take down more sites. The Commission is also recruiting for a newly created Head of Illegal Markets role, designed specifically to coordinate this work.
The second area is technology for detecting, identifying, and removing unlicensed sites. Miller declined to go into specifics, not wanting to signal tactics to those operating outside the law. The third is international cooperation: a couple of weeks before the interview, Miller attended a meeting in Sofia, Bulgaria, with more than a hundred European regulators. The UKGC also chairs the relevant committee within the International Association of Gaming Regulators (IAGR), which brings together regulators from every continent.
Tech giants under fire
In the podcast, Miller was sharply critical of technology platforms such as Meta, which he holds responsible for allowing unlicensed operators to advertise to users on social media. He argued that these platforms’ failure to act proactively undermines the effectiveness of the GamStop self-exclusion system, as ads from illegal operators continue to be served to players who have excluded themselves.
“Tech billionaires compete to be the first to put a man on Mars, yet they claim they are incapable of stopping illegal ads appearing on their platforms. That’s just nonsensical”
At the same time, Miller acknowledged that pursuing a company such as Meta under gambling legislation would likely result in defeat for the UKGC. Given the disparity in resources, the additional £26m, in his words, “would disappear in 2 weeks”.
The world’s second-largest market
According to data from the analytics platform Blask, as of 22 June 2026, the United Kingdom ranks second globally by market size, behind only the United States. The competitive earnings benchmark (CEB) stands at $12.29bn across 355 tracked brands.
Market interest in the British segment, measured by the Blask Index, grew 11.58 per cent year on year. This is the competitive licensed market that Miller cites as the main weapon against the black market. Within the licensed segment, online casinos recorded a 14.03 per cent rise in the Blask Index over the past month, while interest in prediction markets, despite their modest overall scale, grew 12.11 per cent month on month.
The Blask survey data also reveal the channels through which British audiences encounter gambling advertising: social media accounts for 40 per cent and YouTube for 35 per cent, well ahead of traditional television advertising at 20 per cent. It is precisely the inaction of these platforms that Miller is calling out.
Closing the interview, Miller connected the challenge of the illegal market to cryptocurrency. According to Commission data, crypto remains the second-most-common search term associated with players moving to the black market. For now, the UKGC is waiting for the Financial Conduct Authority to determine its approach to crypto regulation before considering whether licensed operators should be permitted to accept cryptocurrency deposits.
This article was first published on the Russian SiGMA News page on 22 June 2026.
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