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The UK Gambling Commission has updated its view of illegal online gambling activity, but the main message is still caution. Fresh data through February 2026 shows uneven traffic patterns rather than a lasting rise, while heavier VPN use is making market measurement less reliable.
Good to Know
A rise in VPN use is now sitting at the center of the illegal gambling debate in Britain. According to the Gambling Commission, anonymising tools are making it harder to judge how many consumers are reaching unlicensed gambling sites and how much activity sits outside the regulated market.
That point shaped the latest update released Tuesday. The regulator used estimated minutes spent on illegal gambling sites as a proxy for consumer engagement across a 21 month series ending in February 2026. Results showed sharp swings in activity, but no clear seasonal pattern and no durable rise. A spike seen in autumn 2024 did not return a year later, which pushed the regulator toward a volatility reading rather than a structural expansion story.
Back in November 2025, the Commission had already said it could not reliably estimate spending with unlicensed operators. It also said three common approaches, based on time, channelisation, and surveys, were not fit for purpose. Six months later, that uncertainty has not gone away. The picture is a bit broader now, but still far from settled.
July 2025 added another layer. After the Online Safety Act rollout, VPN use picked up and then settled around 40% above pre July levels, based on data from Ofcom and Similarweb cited by the Commission. A 30% uplift had already been used to account for hidden traffic, but newer evidence suggests even more illegal gambling activity may now sit behind VPN masking. That forced the regulator to add two VPN usage scenarios to its trend work, widening confidence intervals from mid 2025 onward.
In other words, trend direction is easier to discuss than market size. Web traffic estimates can hint at movement, but they do not capture every route into illegal gambling, including apps and direct connections. For enforcement teams, that creates a real problem. Payment blocking, domain takedowns, and work with banks and ad platforms all depend on knowing where activity is going and whether action is working.
Tim Livesley, head of the UKGC Data Innovation Hub, said:
“We continue to work on improvements to our methodology and are seeking input from other international regulators and licensed operators to help verify and improve existing data sources and to identify additional datasets which can be used to improve understanding of the illegal market.
“The Commission continues to treat illegal gambling as a priority and we will also be providing further updates on how we are expanding our disruption and enforcement activity.”
A March panel at the Spring Evidence Conference in Birmingham helped frame that work. Industry figures, HMRC, and the Dutch gambling regulator met there to discuss illegal gambling enforcement and persistent data weaknesses. Britain is not alone here either. Regulators in multiple markets are running into the same problem as privacy tools make detection, tracking, and payment disruption harder.