BGC Unveils Five-Point Plan to Fight UK Black Market

⏱ 3 min read

The Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) has unveiled a five-point plan to combat the UK's growing illegal gambling black market, warning that unlicensed stakes could climb from £17 billion in 2025 to more than £33 billion by 2028. The trade body, which represents roughly 90% of the regulated UK betting and gaming sector, announced the plan on 8 June 2026.

The intervention is built on forecasts from H2 Gambling Capital, which found that black market profits and stakes both doubled between 2023 and 2025, and on data from WARC showing illegal operators now account for nearly half of all UK gambling advertising spend. For operators and bettors alike, the plan signals where regulatory pressure — on advertising, payments, and enforcement — is likely headed next.

Why the BGC Acted Now

BGC chief executive Grainne Hurst described the H2 figures as a wake-up call for consumer protection. The timing matters: the plan lands ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, when illegal gambling ad spend has historically surged around major tournaments. The BGC also cited specific incidents, including illegal stakes at the Epsom Derby festival reportedly reaching £10 million.

Illegal-operator stakes have already reached £16.6 billion, more than tripling since 2019. If the upper forecast holds, nearly one in five pounds staked online in the UK by 2028 would go to unlicensed sites.

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The Five-Point Plan, Explained

The BGC's proposals target the infrastructure that allows black market operators to function at scale:

• Social media advertising: require platforms to remove unlicensed gambling promotions and ads.
• Website and app blocking: give the Gambling Commission stronger powers to disrupt illegal sites and apps quickly.
• Payment blocking: push payment providers to cut off transactions linked to unlicensed operators.
• Enabler penalties: introduce meaningful penalties for firms — hosting, marketing, or payment companies — that knowingly assist illegal operators.
• Criminal sanctions: toughen penalties for those operating or profiting from illegal gambling targeting UK consumers.

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Current Enforcement vs. the Scale of the Problem

The Gambling Commission has already stepped up disruption work, but the BGC argues the gap between enforcement output and market growth is widening. The table below sets current regulator activity against the BGC's market forecasts.

Metric	Current / Recent Figure	Forecast / Context
Illegal market stakes	£16.6bn (current)	£17bn (2025) → £33bn+ by 2028
Cease-and-desist notices	3,140 issued since April 2024	—
URLs referred to Google/Bing	447,778	—
URLs removed	287,961	~64% removal rate of referred URLs
Illegal ad spend share	~50% of total gambling ad spend	Projected to overtake licensed spend by 2028

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The Illegal Gambling Taskforce

The BGC's plan follows the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) publishing terms of reference for a new Illegal Gambling Taskforce, bringing together regulators, law enforcement, payment firms, and technology companies. The BGC welcomed the taskforce but said it must produce concrete action, not just coordination. Hurst framed the issue as spanning consumer protection, public health, and criminal justice, requiring joint action from government, regulators, tech platforms, and payment services.

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What It Means for Operators and Bettors

For licensed operators, the plan is a lobbying roadmap: continued pressure on social platforms over gambling ads, closer scrutiny of payment rails, and potential enabler-liability rules. The BGC also warned that policy moves making the licensed market less attractive — tighter affordability checks, stricter marketing rules — risk pushing bettors toward unregulated sites with none of the safeguards a UK Gambling Commission license requires. For bettors, the message is unchanged but more urgent: sites without a UKGC license carry no guaranteed identity checks, dispute resolution, or responsible gambling tools — worth checking before the World Cup advertising surge hits.

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Sources

This article draws on the BGC's announcement and independent coverage from gaming-industry trade press.

The black market is growing fast, becoming more visible and attracting billions of pounds in stakes from British consumers. These forecasts are a wake-up call for everyone involved in protecting consumers.

— Grainne Hurst, Chief Executive, Betting and Gaming Council · On the five-point black market plan, 8 June 2026