Study: Illegal gambling in the UK more often complements, rather than replaces, licensed betting
The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has released a study on illegal gambling in the country, questioning the notion that the use of unlicensed operators directly displaces activity from licensed companies.
Using a dataset from Open Banking, the regulator identified 3,426 transactions linked to suspected illegal operators, which involved 179 users. The study indicates that 91% of individuals with recurring detected transactions to illegal operators also engaged with licensed companies. Additionally, researchers found no significant decrease in the number of transactions with licensed operators after users first turned to illegal sites.
According to the regulator's assessment, this suggests that transactions with unlicensed sites more often occurred alongside existing gambling behavior rather than replaced it.
At the same time, the UKGC emphasized that the sample is not nationally representative and does not provide a comprehensive picture of the illegal market. The regulator also acknowledged that some transactions with unlicensed operators may have gone undetected.
Another finding of the study is that credit cards continued to be used to fund accounts on illegal sites, despite the UK's ban on using any credit for gambling. However, such payments were few: 138 transactions, or 4% of the total identified operations. The remaining 3,288 transactions were conducted through current bank accounts.
Data science postdoctoral researcher Steven Murphy stated that the study has several limitations, including the potential presence of undetected transactions and the non-representativeness of the data set. Nonetheless, he described the work as evidence that financial transaction data can be beneficial for a deeper understanding of illegal gambling in the UK and other countries.