Illegal gambling taskforce faces soaring black market in racing betting

Offshore betting has swollen to £16.6 billion a year, and the hit is now landing far beyond the bookmakers’ ledgers. H2 Gambling Capital estimated that black-market turnover in Britain climbed from about £5 billion in 2019, while the legal share of gambling slipped from 97% to 92% over the same period, a sign that more betting money is leaking away from regulated racing and into unsafe channels.

That warning arrived just as the government formally set up its Illegal Gambling Taskforce, chaired by Baroness Fiona Twycross, the Minister for Museums, Heritage and Gambling, with DCMS’s Director of Sport and Gambling as co-chair. The taskforce’s published remit gives it three jobs: disrupt payments to unlicensed operators, tackle illegal gambling advertising online and improve cross-agency enforcement. Its meetings will be held under the Chatham House rule, and the Gambling Commission has already been given an extra £26 million over three years to help fight the black market.

The scale of the problem explains the urgency. H2GC said offshore gross gambling yield reached £685 million in 2025, up from £200 million in 2019, and described the black market as “material.” Yield Sec’s analysis went even further, estimating that illegal operators controlled about 9% of Britain’s online gambling market last year, generated £379 million in the first half of 2025 and were actively targeting customers through 531 black-market sports betting and casino sites.

The fight is no longer confined to shady websites. Racing Post reporting has pointed to social media platforms and online influencers steering punters toward unlicensed bookmakers, while the Gambling Commission’s Tim Miller has publicly criticised platforms for failing to police illegal gambling advertising. The government says services covered by the Online Safety Act must protect users from illegal content, and the Commission says it is targeting websites, affiliates, payment providers and other services that help illegal operators reach British consumers, including IP blocking and referrals to platforms hosting unlicensed material.

The gaps in enforcement were laid bare by government adviser Alex Wood, who was able to sign up to black-market operators using false or unverified identities, including names such as Willie Mullins and Constitution Hill, and even a six-year-old girl living in Buckingham Palace. He also used Meta AI for recommendations on finding unlicensed bookmakers and global payment platforms to make deposits.

Industry reaction remains split, but the concern is shared. Grainne Hurst of the Betting and Gaming Council said the black market is “scaling up at pace,” while bookmaker Ben Keith has argued that friction-heavy affordability rules can push bettors offshore. For racing, the threat is immediate: less spend in the legal market means weaker consumer protections, thinner levy income and more risk to the integrity of the sport itself.