Authorities warned of 'red flag' flying over growth of illegal betting market in the United Kingdom

The growth of the illegal betting market in the United Kingdom must be seen as a “red flag” by authorities, it was claimed on Thursday.

The warning came from Martin Purbrick, chair of the council on anti-illegal betting and related crime at the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities (IFHA), who said that a responsible licensed market was needed to mitigate the threat.

This year a report published by the IFHA found that the number of unique customers visiting 22 unlicensed sites taking bets on British racing had grown by 522 per cent between August 2021 and September 2024. By contrast, unique visitor traffic to ten legal websites offering betting on horseracing had grown by only 49 per cent over the same period.

Purbrick told an online conference organised by the Westminster Media Forum on Thursday that those operators were also taking sports bets and offering gaming products.

He added: "There has been mitigation of the impact of the illegal market in the UK for many years because there has been a very strong, regulated, licensed market here.

"That definitely is no longer the case and I think that we have to wake up to the problem that there is a growing illegal market.

"The scale of the illegal market is not yet clear, but the fact that it is growing is the red flag that we should be aware of."

Purbrick said the primary way of dealing with the issue was to have a "responsible legal licensed gambling market, otherwise we will never defeat the illegal market".

He added: "That has been shown very clearly in some other markets around the world, particularly China, Indonesia, Malaysia and other parts of south-east Asia."

British racing's leadership has warned that affordability checks set out in the 2023 gambling white paper could drive punters to the black market. It has been claimed that checks already in place have also had a major impact. 

Purbrick said: "What we are saying from our recent paper is we are not drawing a direct causation between the regulatory changes in the UK and the illegal market, although there is correlation, but it is a very strong indicator that something is going wrong with the regulation and the illegal market may be growing because of that.

"There is this growth in demand for unlicensed illegal betting options from UK customers. Again it is a red flag about over-regulation.

"Regulation is critical, but over-regulation can have a negative impact if we are not careful. We do need to balance consumer protection with creating a viable legal market. It is a very, very difficult balance for the Gambling Commission to achieve."

Sarah Fox, the deputy director for gambling and lotteries at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, also spoke at the conference where she said that acting on the black market was a "real challenge".

She added: "We are having greater powers coming through for the Gambling Commission to tackle the black market and that's in the Crime and Policing Bill that is in parliament at the moment."

Read these next:

Report sounds warning over affordability checks' role in growing the black market - but will it be heard? 

False addresses, fake reviews and media sabotage - findings show length to which illegal operators are going to deceive punters 

'Everyone is losing out' - racing figures fear for sport in light of survey's findings over growth of black market 

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