BHA Says UK Illegal Betting Is Still Growing Despite 3,100+ UKGC Disruption Notices

The British Horseracing Authority (BHA) says the UK has made efforts to push back against offshore gambling, but the numbers in a new IFHA report still point the other way. For payment providers, the important bit is simple: channelization remains weak, and the black market is still taking real traffic.

1. The study, published by the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities’ (IFHA) Council on Anti-Illegal Betting and Related Crime, looked at 300 popular betting websites in the UK. It found that roughly 1 in every 5 visits to a betting operator goes to an offshore operator: 74 of the 300 sites examined were legal, and 227 were illegal.
2. Over the first seven months of 2026, there were roughly 19.4 visits to illegal sites for every 100 visits to legal ones. A follow-up analysis of 32 unlicensed websites found 6.8 visits from UK players for every 100 visits to licensed sites, about seven times the 0.97 rate recorded in late 2021.
3. The IFHA also said monthly unique visits to unlicensed sites rose from 1.8 million in 2022 to 25+ million in 2025. It flagged longer play sessions on illegal operators as another feature of the market, which matters for anyone tracking where wagering volume is actually going.
4. The BHA said the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has issued over 3,100 cease-and-desist or disruption notices since 2024, and removed 288,000 URLs in that period. Even so, it argued that offshore traffic remains high and that the illegal sector has not been pushed back in a meaningful way.
5. In the BHA’s view, the problem has been made worse by new regulatory and tax measures that have limited the legal industry’s ability to compete. It said this has led to a reduction in live event betting and a significant reduction in online racing turnover. Brant Dunshea, CEO of the BHA, said the IFHA research shows the concerns the industry has been raising are now being realized.

The BHA is calling for coordinated action against the black market, including cooperation between government, industry stakeholders, tech companies, and payment providers. The IFHA’s point is also blunt: success should be measured by sustained reductions in illegal traffic, not by the number of notices sent or URLs removed.