British Punters’ Gambling with Unlicensed Operators Doubles during Coronavirus Pandemic, New Report Says

British Punters’ Gambling with Unlicensed Operators Doubles during Coronavirus Pandemic, New Report Says

A new report has revealed that British punters are using the services of sports betting companies operating on the black market twice as much as they did only a couple of years ago. According to information provided by the accounting firm PwC, last year, local gamblers slot spent over £2.8 billion with online gambling companies that offer their services without a licence.

The report also revealed that the number of punters using the services of unlicensed betting websites has increased from 210,000 two years ago to about 460,000 in 2020.

PwC’s latest report comes at a time when the trade body representing the gambling sector, the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) has warned how dangerous illegal or unlicensed gambling operators could be for the licensed ones, especially at a time when the UK Government is planning to unveil stricter regulations for local bookmakers. Some licensed gambling companies have warned that imposing further restrictions on the sector could encourage British punters to start betting on the unregulated “black” market even more than they do now.

The CEO of the UK gambling industry’s trade body, Michael Dugher, described the new PwC report as “an impressive and comprehensive piece of work” that highlights the dangers which unsafe and unregulated gambling sector poses to British punters. Mr Dugher reminded that companies operating on the black market have no consumer protection in place, such as age verification and ID checks, deposit limits or safer gambling messages.

Licenced Gambling Operators Accused of Exaggerating Black Market Scale

The UK Government has undertaken a review of the gambling industry although the BGC warned that stricter regulation could fend off players and push them into the arms of unregulated bookmakers. According to some campaigners, however, the country’s liberalisation of online gambling has gone too far and licensed companies have been deliberately exaggerating the benefits for their unlicensed rivals hoping that the Government’s regulation will be more focused on them.

Licenced gambling companies have already been criticised for exaggerating the actual scale of black-market betting by local regulators. Gambling watchdogs have accused licenced gambling operators of hypocrisy, saying they fear that more players would prefer “underground” companies to gamble with rather than customers would be more exposed to harm by choosing black-market operators.

Despite the concerning figures unveiled by PwC, previous reports of the accounting company have been considered controversial.

In January, the chief executive officer of the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC), Neil McArthur, shared that the findings shared by PwC on the black market in 2019 were not consistent with the intelligence picture because it made no difference between automated bots/systems or black market websites.

Still, the culture minister Nigel Huddleston has promised that the black market will be included in the Government’s review of the 2005 Gambling Act.