British consumers staked around £17 billion with illegal gambling operators in 2025, a figure that researchers at H2 Gambling Capital, in work commissioned by the Betting and Gaming Council, forecast could nearly double to £33 billion by 2028. If that holds, unlicensed sites would account for close to a fifth of all online betting and gaming stakes in the country within three years. The trade body has used the numbers to demand tougher enforcement against offshore operators, and to warn ministers against regulating the licensed sector any harder.
The claim rests on a sharp line between two markets. On one side is the regulated one: hundreds of operators holding a Gambling Commission licence, generating £7.8 billion in remote gross gambling yield in the year to March 2025 and bound by rules on advertising, affordability and player protection. Every one of the UK’s top casino sites sits inside this group, because no credible ranking will list an operator that lacks a licence. On the other side are offshore sites that answer to no British regulator, pay no duty here and offer no recourse when a withdrawal is refused. The industry’s argument is that every turn of the regulatory screw on the first group nudges customers toward the second.
Those figures deserve a sceptical read, because of who produced them. The research was paid for by the body that represents roughly 90 percent of the regulated industry, an industry with an obvious interest in the conclusion that regulation drives people to the black market. The Gambling Commission has long been wary of operator-sponsored estimates of illegal gambling, noting that independent verification of the scale is thin and that headline totals are easily inflated.
That does not make the trend false. It means the £33 billion forecast should be read as a lobbying instrument as much as a measurement. The direction of travel, more consumers encountering slick unlicensed sites through search and social media, is real. The precise size of it is contested, and the people quoting the largest numbers are the ones who stand to gain from them.
The mechanism behind the argument is genuine even where the scale is disputed. Affordability checks, deposit limits and slower sign-up processes on licensed sites are designed to protect the majority, but a determined minority experience them as friction and go looking for operators that ask fewer questions. Unlicensed sites offer exactly that, alongside larger bonuses and no limits, precisely because they ignore the rules the licensed market has to follow.
This is the tension at the centre of gambling policy. The protections that shield most players can inconvenience a few into worse places, and there is no setting of the dial that serves both groups perfectly.
For the consumer the practical case for staying inside the licensed market is not moral but self-interested. An unlicensed site carries no mandated responsible-gambling tools, no independent dispute resolution and no guarantee that deposited funds are protected. None of its revenue feeds the statutory levy that now funds treatment and research in Britain. When it disappears overnight, as such sites do, there is no regulator to complain to.
That leaves government with a real dilemma rather than a manufactured one. Tighten the rules to protect the many, and you hand the industry’s lobbyists a ready-made warning about the black market. Loosen them, and you undercut the protections that justify having a licensed market at all. Whether the true figure is £33 billion or a fraction of it, the choice is genuine, and it will not be settled by the side with the biggest number.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for general informational purposes only and reflects analysis of a public policy issue. It does not constitute gambling advice or endorse any gambling operator or service. Gambling carries financial risk and should only be undertaken responsibly by those aged 18 and over.
