UKGC Study: Illegal Gambling Sits Alongside Licensed Play
People who gamble with illegal operators in Great Britain do not necessarily stop using licensed ones, according to new research from the UK Gambling Commission.
The regulator's Open Banking data analysis, published on 28 October 2026, found that among people with repeated detected payments to illegal operators, 91% also gambled with licensed ones. It adds to the Commission’s ongoing work on the illegal market.
How The Study Worked
The dataset was gathered by YouGov and consists of Open Banking transactions from 38,000 individuals between July 2018 and July 2026, shared with informed consent and used anonymously for research.
The records are linked to survey information, including Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI) scores for many people.
Licensed gambling transactions were identified with an algorithm developed by Yaspa, and the analysis was supported by the Commission's collaboration with Warwick Business School.
The study identified 3,426 transactions with suspected illegal operators, linked to 179 individuals. Of those transactions, 3,288 (96%) came from current accounts and 138 (4%) from credit cards, with 15 of the 179 individuals making any credit card payment to these operators.
No Sign Of A Switch Away From Licensed Operators
For the 122 people with at least two illegal transactions, the Commission tracked average licensed transactions in the six months either side of their first illegal payment. The average was 28.8 licensed transactions per person six months before, and 24.8 in the month before.
In the month after, it was 23.7 licensed transactions alongside 4.9 illegal ones, and six months after it was 23.6 licensed against 1.5 illegal.
The regulator said this shows no substantial shift away from the licensed market after a person's first known illegal transaction.
It also said illegal payments tend to come in clusters and often sit close in time to legal ones, which it takes as a sign that illegal gambling is embedded in existing behaviour rather than replacing it.
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Higher Harm Among Illegal-Site Users
Of the 179 individuals, 146 had PGSI scores. Some 45% of them scored 8 or more, the threshold for problem gambling, compared with 6% of the 12,543 licensed, non-lottery gambling consumers in the dataset. At the other end, 26% of the illegal-site group scored 0, against 68% of licensed gamblers.
The Commission cautioned that the data is not nationally representative, so PGSI figures can only be compared within the sample and not with the Gambling Survey for Great Britain. It also noted that some transactions with unlicensed operators may have gone undetected. The report is part of a series using surveys, estimated web traffic and now financial transaction data to build a picture of the illegal market.
The findings are relevant to the industry argument that illegal sites are simply a substitute for regulated play. The Commission's data suggests many people use both. Anyone worried about their gambling can find tools and support through our responsible gambling hub, and should only play with UKGC-licensed operators.
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