Government urged to clamp down on gambling black market

Children and young people need to be better protected from accessing unlicensed black market gambling operators with the Betting And Gaming Council (BGC) urging the government to step up its protection measures.

According to the BGC, 200,000 people used the unregulated sites last year with search engines returning results containing 38 per cent of such firms when the key betting terms were used.

Black market operators do not possess the same strict age and identification checks required by law for UK-licensed firms, allowing an easier passage for children to gamble under age.