The UK Gambling Commission has announced it will publish a report on the size of the UK black market in spring 2025.

A goss gaming yield (GGY) of £335m year is lost to the UK Treasury over a five-year parliamentary term with £4.3bn in stakes being placed in the UK with black market operators.

The online gambling black market occurs when customers choose knowingly or otherwise to gamble with a provider which is not licensed in the jurisdiction where the customer is, and where a licence is required by law to either accept customers or to ‘target’ them with advertising and localised content or payment methods.

The ability of regulators and law enforcement to restrict the growth of the black market has been given a significant boost by the recent introduction of the Online Safety Act. It is vital for both consumer safety and protecting taxes that these new powers, as well as under-utilised existing powers, are used to mitigate the growth of black-market gambling in Britain as consumer frictions and therefore black market participation increase.

In particular, DCMS should pass secondary legislation to classify illegal gambling as ‘priority illegal content’ for the purposes of the Online Safety Act, thereby requiring search engines and social media sites to take proactive steps to stop consumers seeing content relating to black market sites.