British Gambling Commission blocks 264 illegal gambling websites
CEO Andrew Rhodes has highlighted a sharp increase in the number of blocks.
Spain.- Speaking at ICE Barcelona, Andrew Rhodes, the CEO of the British Gambling Commission has highlighted the regulator’s work in tackling unlicensed gambling offerings in Britain. Rhodes said the regulator had been involved in blocking 264 unlicensed gambling websites in the current financial year starting in April 2024. That’s a rise of over 1,000 per cent year-on-year in the number of blocks.
Rhodes told attendees that the Gambling Commission had referred more than 102,000 URLs to Google due to unlicensed gaming activity and that the search giant had removed 64,000 sites as a result. He added that the regulator had also issued more than 770 cease and desist orders and disruption notices, including 262 against operators and 205 to advertisers.
Rhodes said: “Our aim is to prevent the illegal market from operating at scale in Great Britain. A significant part of our strategy in doing that is to target our efforts as far upstream as we can – at the level of hosts, payment providers, software providers, search engines and others.
“We have spent the last two years in particular not just targeting illegal activity but also building our own resources, skills and capabilities. There is more to do of course and that also is true of others in the sector.”
Licensees’ role in tackling illegal gambling
Rhodes also emphasised the Gambling Commission’s recent warning regarding licenced software on illegal market, stressing that licensees should conduct due diligence checks on suppliers.
He said: “Whilst it is not the job of licensed operators to take action against illegal operators, I have firmly encouraged everyone to ensure they have undertaken due diligence regarding their own activities and those of any suppliers they rely on. If the Commission detects illegal activity in any operator – B2C or B2B – we may well immediately suspend their licence. In any event, they face the very real prospect of having their GB licence revoked, which means anything they are supplying to anyone else in Britain will cease immediately.”
Earlier in the week, the Gambling Commission said it had detected third-party resellers distributing games supplied by operators to the illegal market, often in breach of contractual obligations. It warned that licensees may have been negligent in allowing them to do so and could place their own licence at risk. The regulator called on all operators providing Business-to-Business (B2B) gaming solutions including live games, live casinos and slots to help tackle the illegal market by reviewing their own practices.
Last week, Rhodes told the IAGA webinar that the British regulator will investigate the issue of illegal football betting more closely. He said the Gambling Commission was focusing on “upstream disruption” and that it would continue to carry out test purchasing to detect businesses working with unlicensed gambling operators of all kinds.
