Time on UK Illegal Sites Went Up After Online Safety Act Became Law

Hundreds of millions of minutes are being spent on illegal gambling websites in the UK every month, and the number increased after the implementation of the Online Safety Bill, according to British regulator the Gambling Commission.

Tim Livesley, Head of Data Innovation at the Commission, published a blog on trends and data in illegal gambling. A previous publication provided data up July 2025, but this has now been updated since the introduction of the Online Safety Bill, covering May 2024 to February 2026. The data showed a continuation of fluctuating trends, but with no seasonal patterns being apparent.

Between May 2024 and January 2025, the estimated number of minutes spent on illegal gambling websites by players ranged from about 150 million minutes in July 2024 to a peak of just over 300 million minutes in January 2025. The figure dipped to just below 200 minutes for July 2025, when the Online Safety Bill was introduced.

The Online Safety Act 2023 entered its major enforcement stage in 2025, requiring platforms to use strict age assurance to prevent children from accessing harmful content, with key child protection duties taking place on July 25, 2025. The Act is also designed to protect adult users, ensuring major platforms are more transparent about which kinds of potentially harmful content they allow.

VPNs push numbers up

Despite the introduction of the bill, the estimated engagement of illegal gambling websites actually crept up to more than 200 million minutes in August 2025, although this has since gradually fallen to about 150 million minutes for January 2026. Livesey noted how since the introduction of the bill, many users purchased virtual private networks (VPNs) to circumvent restrictions on online activity.

Data from communication services regulator Ofcom showed a sharp increase in VPN usage in July 2025, taking the estimated usage to about 350 million minutes per month, which was followed by a steady decline to a level around 40% above previous levels. Data from digital data company SimilarWeb showed a similar upward trend in usage, without the same initial spike.

Livesley wrote in the blog:

“We continue to work on improvements to our methodology and are seeking input from other international regulators and licensed operators to help verify and improve existing data sources.

“The Commission continues to treat illegal gambling as a priority and we will also be providing further updates on how we are expanding our disruption and enforcement activity and how we are measuring the impact of this investment.”

Increased unlicensed advertising spend

The publishing of this data follows the release of research from market intelligence firm the World Advertising Research Centre (WARC), which shows unregulated firms account for close to half of all UK gambling advertising spend, with trend showing this is set to account for a majority of spend in the future.

According to WARC, total UK advertising market is forecast to reach £1.9 billion by October 2026, with spend from licensed operators set to fall 9.2% this year to £1.1 billion. In contrast, spend from the unlicensed sector is set to grow 32% and exceed £1 billion within two years.

Reacting to this, Betting and Gaming Council CEO Grainne Hurst said:

"This should ring alarm bells in Westminster. The real question is whether advertising is coming from regulated operators, who are held to strict standards, or from the harmful illegal black market, which operates entirely outside the rules.”