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ASA Referrals

Request date
25 June 2026

Outcome
Partial exemption

Document actions
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Request

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) refers evidence of suspected illegal gambling advertising to the Gambling Commission for review and enforcement.

· How many such referrals have been made to the Commission by the ASA in the past 12 months?

If time allows within the parameters of Section 12 of the UK Freedom of Information Act 2000, please also provide answers to the following in order of priority:

· Of the referrals made by the ASA to the Gambling Commission for suspected illegal gambling advertising over the past 12 months, how many were confirmed and subject to enforcement action?

· How many successful prosecutions has the Gambling Commission secured for illegal gambling advertising over the past 12 months?

· How many breaches of the Advertising Code by licenced gambling operators did the ASA refer to the Gambling Commission over the past 12 months?

· How many referrals in total - from all sources - did the Gambling Commission receive in the past twelve months for potentially illegal gambling advertising?

Response

Thank you for your request which has been processed under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).

In your email you have requested the following information in relation to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), which refers evidence of suspected illegal gambling advertising to the Gambling Commission for review and enforcement. Specifically:

  1. How many such referrals have been made to the Commission by the ASA in the past 12 months? If time allows within the parameters of Section 12 of the UK Freedom of Information Act 2000, please also provide answers to the following in order of priority:
  2. Of the referrals made by the ASA to the Gambling Commission for suspected illegal gambling advertising over the past 12 months, how many were confirmed and subject to enforcement action?
  3. How many successful prosecutions has the Gambling Commission secured for illegal gambling advertising over the past 12 months?
  4. How many breaches of the Advertising Code by licenced gambling operators did the ASA refer to the Gambling Commission over the past 12 months?
  5. How many referrals in total - from all sources - did the Gambling Commission receive in the past twelve months for potentially illegal gambling advertising?

The Commission is a regulatory body with licensing, compliance and enforcement functions. Through our regulatory enforcement activity, the Commission aims to protect consumers and the wider public, and to raise standards in the gambling industry. Part of our statutory remit and a key licensing objective is to keep crime out of gambling. When consumers access potentially illegal gambling operators, they expose themselves to many risks and are not afforded the protections in place that are expected in the regulated sector.

The Commission has, under section 28 of the Gambling Act 2005, the power to investigate whether an offence has been committed under the Act and to commence legal proceedings in respect of such an offence. The Gambling Commission’s approach to tackling unlicensed gambling is available on our website: Blog - Unlicensed Gambling – Our approach to tackling unlicensed gambling.

The Gambling Commission has also published a four-part series on illegal online gambling. The series, launched in 2025, set out to improve understanding of consumer engagement with illegal online gambling, the risks it poses, and the actions being taken to disrupt it. The third chapter focuses on the disruption of the market, including the categories of third-party organisations the Commission engaged with and some of the metrics used to assess the effectiveness of this work. In order to be of assistance, please see the following information available on the Gambling Commission website:

Please note, the Commission has used the following date range to answer your response - 12 months from 26/06/2025 to 26/06/2026.

Question One:

In relation to question one of your request, the Commission can confirm that 101 referrals have been made to the Commission by ASA within the last 12 months, relating to potential illegal gambling.

Question Two and Question Four:

In relation to question two and question four of your request, this information is not stored in an extractable format. We would be required to manually review large volumes of information, stored across several areas of the Commission to fulfil your request.

Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) makes provision for public authorities to refuse requests for information where the cost of dealing with them would exceed the appropriate limit, which for public authorities, such as the Commission, is set at £450. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 18 hours in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information.   

We estimate, in order to identify, locate and retrieve the information relating to the above request, it would take in excess of 18 hours to determine appropriate material and locate, retrieve and extract any relevant information in reference to your request.

When a public authority applies the Section 12 exemption to a request, the FOIA guidance specifically states that a public authority should avoid providing any information found as a result of a search as it denies the requestor the right to express a preference as to which parts of the request they may wish to receive within the appropriate time limit.

If you are able to refine your request, we may be able to narrow the number of records that we need to search.

Until we are able to process the search of the information you have requested, we are unable to ascertain if other exemptions will apply to any material identified which would also prevent disclosure. For example, section 31 – Law Enforcement provides an exemption for information that the Commission holds where disclosure would undermine the Commission’s licensing objective to keep crime out of gambling. Disclosure of this information could seriously impact the Commission’s ability to fulfil its statutory functions, which is strongly not in the public interest. Any refined request would be processed as a new request and the 20 working day statutory time limit would apply. 

Please note, we release details of our enforcement activity through public statements. The public statements will detail the nature of the failings by the operator and the amount of the fine or settlement. Further to this, the Commission also publishes a list of recent regulatory sanctions we have imposed on licence holders.

Question 3:

There has been one conviction for illegal gambling advertising over the past 12 months.

Question 5:

The Commission can confirm that no information is held falling within the scope of this part of your request. This is due to ‘advertising’ not being captured as a category.

Review of the decision

If you are unhappy with the service you have received in relation to your Freedom of Information request you are entitled to an internal review of our decision. You should write to FOI Team, Gambling Commission, 4th floor, Victoria Square House, Victoria Square, Birmingham, B2 4BP or by reply to this email. 

Please note, internal review requests should be made within 40 working days of the initial response. Requests made outside this timeframe will not be processed.

If you are not content with the outcome of our review, you may then apply directly to the Information Commissioner (ICO) for a decision. Generally, the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have already exhausted the review procedure provided by the Gambling Commission. 

It should be noted that if you wish to raise a complaint with the ICO about the Commission’s handling of your request for information, then you are required to do so within six weeks of receiving your final response or last substantive contact with us.

The ICO can be contacted at: The Information Commissioner’s Office (opens in new tab), Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.

Information Management Team
Gambling Commission

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