UKGC finds 2.5% of online gamblers used unlicensed sites in the past four weeks

The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC), working with Yonder Consulting, has built an index to measure how often British players use illegal operators. For PSPs and payment teams, the interesting part is not the headline number itself, but the way the regulator is widening the lens from player behaviour to the infrastructure around the grey market.

1. The first results come from the Gambling Survey for Great Britain for April 2025 to April 2026. Among people who had gambled online in the past year, 2.5% said they had used unlicensed sites in the last four weeks, while 1.5% had done so earlier in the year.
2. Among all respondents, those shares were 0.6% and 0.4%. A further 4.6% showed separate signs of this kind of play, but the UKGC said the data were not strong enough for firm conclusions.
3. The index is based on seven self-reported indicators, including playing on sites outside GamStop, registering without age and identity checks, and using VPNs or cryptocurrency. Each indicator is weighted by recency: the last four weeks, the last year, or an earlier period.
4. Men were more likely than women to use unlicensed sites. Over the year, the highest incidence was among players aged 18–24; over the last four weeks, it was highest among those aged 25–34. The most common indicators were playing outside GamStop, at 58%, and reversing their own withdrawal requests, at 56.6%.
5. The UKGC says it plans to expand monitoring beyond player behaviour and track the wider illegal-market stack: affiliates, social media, advertisers, payment systems, and hosting. For high-risk payment providers, that is the bit to watch, because the regulator is explicitly moving closer to the rail, not just the customer.