UKGC Issues Gambling Black Market Countermeasures Report

Casinoplusbonus takes a look at the latest UKGC report covering measures currently being carried out to fight unlicensed gambling in the UK. (Image courtesy of icetrayimages794410 )

Today, on the official UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) website, Andrew Rhodes published a report on how the authority is tackling unlicensed gambling.

The report comes after the International Association of Gaming Regulators (IAGR) in which the UKGC chief executive gave a speech.

One clear message was, “Tackling unlicensed gambling is central to our objective of preventing gambling from being a source of crime”.

Efforts include collaboration with Google and now include Microsoft and other companies to extend banning websites from other search engines such as Bing and Yahoo.

Casinoplusbonus News also covered the UKGC’s collaboration with Google on 3 August 2024 – Mass Ban On Non-UKGC Casinos and Affiliate Sites.

Aside from having URLs of affiliate sites advertising non-UKGC gambling platforms to UK citizens, Andrew Rhodes and the UKGC report also states that action has been taken to prevent illegal site from accessing certain gaming products and has choked off payments. These are just some of the objects to frustrate non-UKGC gambling sites.

Stats From Actions Taken by The UKGC’s Fight Against Unlicensed Casinos

Black Market Gambling a Hot Topic

The UK’s online gambling black market has not only been a hot topic in UK Gambling news but also here at Casinoplusbonus. A little over 3 weeks after Entain teamed up with Regulus and created a ‘Plan to Fight Back Market Gambling’.

Entain and Regulus laid out their version of how the UKGC should tackle unlicensed gambling and also published a few scare numbers. In particular, the fact that UK government could lose up to £340m in tax revenues unless it ups its fight to prevent the UK’s clearly growing black market.

Just 20 days prior to the UK’s 21 October 2024 report, the Casinoplusbonus team also discussed another report – BGC Highlights Gambling Regulatory Best Practices. Another study into how the UK needs to get a grip on the current rising black market gambling scene.

The UKGC has now addressed some of the points made by Entain and the BGC. You can read Andrew Rhodes IAGR speech here.

International Association of Gaming Regulators (IAGR)

The follow-up blog issued on the UKGC website echoes Andrew Rhodes’s points made on tackling unlicensed gambling in the UK. One of the points made is the current collaboration with the International Association of Gaming Regulators (IAGR).

• The UKGC will collaborate to discover the locations of gambling website operators offering players in the UK access to non-UKGC gambling. However, I am skeptical on this matter because many of these companies have cleverly set in safe havens out of reach from international prosecution.

• One tactic that could work is the plan to collaborate with the financial organisations that allow non-UKGC casinos to store player funds and operating profits. With that being said, I am once again sceptical because if these organisations are using non-custodial crypto wallets, the financial forensics that needs to go into finding the owners of these wallets is going to pose a time-consuming and costly challenge.

• Collaboration with the IAGR, which includes Australia, which has long battled with illegal online casinos, as well as other members such as the Dutch Gaming Authority (NGA), New Jersey Casino Control Commission (NJCCC) and Michigan Gaming Control Board (MGCB), could help. Sharing the resources and costs to track operators offering gambling services in these jurisdictions could help to crack down on a percentage of operators.

• We already mentioned collaboration with Google, and plans to also work with Yahoo and Bing. Andrew Rhodes also mentioned “contacting hosts/registrars via the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)” to take down illegal gambling websites from their hosting platforms. In my opinion, yes, this is a great idea, but the wealthier casinos could simply set up data centres in their haven countries. Yet at significant cost and risk.

(Source for content: Our approach to tackling unlicensed gambling)

What Else Could the UKGC Do to Fight Unlicensed Gambling

Another way the UKGC could tackle the issue is to collaborate with VPN companies, especially seeing as VPN services use ISPs in the countries they operate. Yet, there are some countries where ISPs are likely not going to oblige.

However, starting small and expanding over time will surely lead to more disruption for these unlicensed gambling sites that advertise themselves as VPN-friendly, while also allow UK citizens to pass their ‘Know Your Customer’ KYC checks.

From the Casinplusbonus team’s point of view, yes, the UKGC is taking the right approach. Yet, we still feel much of the effort put into tackling the issue of unlicensed online gambling sites is easily solvable by simply allowing UK casinos to offer British players the chance to deposit and play via crypto.

In the meantime, there is another more threatening factor at play in all of this. If the new Labour government doubles gambling taxes, UK citizens are stubborn and will find a way to play at non-UKGC casinos if the tax reduces the value of casino or sports betting in the UK – read more here – UK Government Lost the Plot Doubling Gambling Taxes.