VPNs cloud UK illegal gambling data picture
Table of contents
- The Gambling Commission has updated its illegal gambling trend data through February 2026, extending its dataset to 21 months.
- Overall web traffic to unlicensed sites shows no consistent or sustained growth, though patterns remain volatile and non-seasonal.
- Rising VPN adoption following the Online Safety Bill complicates measurement, with the regulator now modelling two separate traffic scenarios.
The UK Gambling Commission has published an updated analysis of consumer engagement with illegal gambling websites, extending its trend data through February 2026 and revising its methodology to account for growing use of virtual private networks.
The update, authored by Tim Livesley, Head of the Commission’s Data Innovation Hub, builds on findings first published in November 2025. It was presented at the regulator’s Spring Evidence Conference in Birmingham last month, where representatives from industry, the Dutch gambling regulator and HMRC were also in attendance.
Figure 1: Trend line of estimated consumer engagement with illegal gambling websites
Volatile, not growing
The Commission’s 21-month dataset measures consumer engagement through estimated minutes spent on illegal gambling sites. The data shows fluctuating activity with no clear seasonal pattern, with the spike observed in autumn 2024 not repeated in the same period of 2025.
The regulator’s earlier November report similarly found no overall increase in engagement from May 2024 to July 2025, with around 1,000 unique illegal gambling websites accessed by consumers in Great Britain during that period.
The Commission cautions that web traffic estimates carry margins of error and are better suited to identifying trends than measuring absolute volumes. It also acknowledges that alternative access routes will not be visible in its web traffic data, and urges against treating any single data source as definitive.
Figure 2: Trend line of estimated consumer engagement with illegal gambling websites – including VPN scenarios adjustment
The VPN problem
A significant methodological challenge has emerged from the wider adoption of VPNs following the Online Safety Bill. The Commission had already applied a 30% uplift to its trendline to reflect traffic hidden by VPN use, but acknowledges that a larger proportion of web traffic may have been concealed after July 2025.
To account for this, the regulator drew on VPN usage data from both Ofcom and analytics provider Similarweb. Ofcom data showed a sharp increase in usage starting in July 2025, stabilising at roughly 40% above pre-July levels. Similarweb reflected a similar pattern but with a less pronounced initial spike.
The Commission has now incorporated both scenarios into its trend modelling, resulting in wider confidence intervals from mid-2025 onwards. The broader uncertainty does not resolve which figure is closer to reality, but reflects a more honest representation of what the data can and cannot confirm.
This sits within a sharper enforcement context. The Commission’s own business plan notes that over 100,000 URLs from illegal sites were referred to search engines in FY2024/25, a more than tenfold increase year-on-year, a sign of intensifying disruption activity even as traffic measurement remains imprecise.
What comes next
The Commission says it is seeking input from international regulators and licensed operators to verify and improve its data sources, and is working to identify additional datasets that can strengthen understanding of the illegal market. Further updates on research, data methodology, and enforcement activity are expected throughout the year.
The update arrives at a sensitive moment for the UK regulated market. The Remote Gaming Duty increase from 21% to 40%, effective 1 April 2026, has intensified industry concern about player migration to unlicensed sites, and chatbot recommendations of unlicensed operators have added a new dimension to the enforcement challenge.
A leadership transition at the Commission, with CEO Andrew Rhodes due to exit on 30 April, means incoming leadership will need to accelerate both measurement accuracy and enforcement visibility to maintain credibility on this issue.
For licensed operators, the Commission’s acknowledgement of data limitations is significant: the absence of proof of growth is not the same as proof of stability. The £26 million in government funding committed to illegal gambling enforcement over three years will need to demonstrate measurable impact alongside improving methodology.
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