British Gambling Commission launches new Illegal Gambling Hub
The new initiative is intended to bring together research, enforcement updates and advice on how to identify unlicensed gambling.
UK.- The British Gambling Commission has announced the creation of a new Illegal Gambling Hub in a bid to raise awareness of illegal and unlicensed gambling in the UK. It said the initiative will bring together research, enforcement updates, and advice for interested parties on how to identify unlicensed gambling.
The measure was announced as the regulator published the first in a series of reports examining the illegal online gambling market in Great Britain. The first instalment focuses on consumer behaviours, motivations, and personas, offering new insights into who engages with illegal gambling websites, how they find them, and the drivers behind their engagement.
Forthcoming instalments will look at engagement data and trend, enforcement and disruption activity, highlighting the work of the regulator’s Illegal Markets Team, and the challenges of estimating the size of the illegal online market in Britain.
Reasons for using unlicensed gambling sites
Discussing the findings of the first report, the Gambling Commission’s director of research and statistics Ben Haden highlighted the wide range of reasons why a consumer may engage with illegal websites.
“At a headline level, we know that the majority of gambling consumers do not engage with illegal gambling websites. We also know that those that do are largely using illegal websites alongside their usual gambling with licensed operators, to supplement their primary gambling experiences.
”Participation in the illegal market tends to be higher among men, younger individuals (aged 18 to 24), consumers who gamble more frequently, and those who score 8 or more on the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI).”
He expressed concern that much of the illegal operator activity in this space targets those who have excluded themselves from the legal market but are still seeking opportunities to gamble. “Many of these consumers are at risk of, or may already be experiencing gambling harms, which can be exacerbated further by their engagement with illegal online gambling websites,” he said. ”The volume of advertising aimed at this group is significant and with over half a million consumers signed up to GAMSTOP, unfortunately there are many to be targeted.”
There are also consumers who are using illegal websites for other reasons. The research shows that some consumers knowingly and systematically engage with illegal websites because they want to gamble on new markets, with alternative currencies, or to explore new games. Others are not aware that they are using an unlicensed website but use search engines or follow recommendations on social media and forums to find what they consider to be better odds or markets of interest to them.
”We know from our previous research on consumer trust in gambling that consumers place a high degree of importance on regulation, and the need for gambling companies to be overseen by a regulator and held accountable for their conduct if it falls short of standards,” Haden said.
“The lack of regulation and consumer protection in the illegal market is therefore clearly a concern to us. A key next step is to drill into some of the drivers in more detail and see the extent to which they may lead consumers to overlook or disregard this principle. What influence does regulatory action have on consumers’ propensity to venture into less secure gambling spaces? How much of a role do industry-led actions, such as account restrictions, play? This will be the focus of our next phase of research”.
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Approaches to disrupting the illegal gambling market
Haden stressed that the research so far shows the debate on approaches to disrupting the illegal market, and influencing and informing future consumer behaviour, needs to be nuanced and strategic – built on appreciation of mainstream trends of online usage, associated trust and consumer behaviours, as well as evolving gambling trends.
”Our ongoing work with consumers will also focus on understanding the relative size of the key audience groups that use illegal gambling websites, and how we appropriately target our resources as a result within our regulatory remit,” he said.
“Finally, there is a legitimate question to understand what is genuinely lost from the legal market when consumers engage with illegal websites.” he added. ”Is the spend that is taking place in the illegal market – often from those who are self-excluded or could potentially be experiencing harm – spend that we, or the industry, would want to see back in the legal market? Our work to build a deeper understanding of consumer experiences will be an integral part of addressing this question.
