Report
Illegal online gambling - Phase 2: Identifying indicators of consumer engagement with illegal gambling websites
The Gambling Commission's report on the second phase of the Consumer Voice illegal gambling project.
Contents
Methodology
Timeline
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Phase 1
April to June 2024
Informed by a quantitative incidence test with 1,000 people who gamble online, 10 qualitative depth interviews with illegal gambling site users and 2 focus groups with people with lived experience were undertaken to understand their motivations and experiences, to provide the Gambling Commission with an understanding of the different audiences that engage with the illegal market.
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Phase 2
December 2024
A quantitative survey with 2,000 people who gamble online was created based on learnings from Phase One around the 4 audiences: self-excluders, skilled advocates, social explorers, and accidental tourists, as well as learnings on the most reliable indicators of illegal websites that could be used to gauge engagement.
This phase is the focus of this report.
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Phase 3
January 2025
Using the data from Phase Two of the research, alongside input from the Commission and their stakeholder groups in industry and those with lived experience, a composite index approach, reliant on a suite of agreement questions, was created in order to provide a single metric through which the Commission could assess engagement with the illegal market on a broader scale. This index approach has been fielded on the Gambling Survey of Great Britain (GSGB).
Phase 2 methodology in detail
In December 2024, Yonder conducted an ad hoc online survey with a sample of 2,046 adults who had gambled at least once online in the last 4 weeks (excluding those that had only played National Lottery products). Adults who had gambled in the last 4 weeks were sampled specifically because their recall of websites used, products played, and experiences had, would be better than those that had gambled in a less recent timeframe.
The rationale for excluding those who only play National Lottery was both due to the nature of the survey content, which required some degree of engagement with other online gambling activities such as betting, casino or bingo games, and to ensure good representation of consumer experience with the wider gambling industry, rather than just the National Lottery.
Respondents were recruited to be broadly representative, using a quota-based sampling approach, with 4 key demographics tracked: age, gender, UK region and social grade, to match the known incidence of those who gamble as occurring in the general population using random stratified sampling frames (full sample details can be found in Appendix 1). After fieldwork, weights were applied to the data to correct any imbalance that occurred in sampling, to exactly match the quotas. Fieldwork took place between 18 and 23 December 2024.
Respondents were asked questions around their awareness of the illegal online gambling market, their engagement within it, and their engagement with a series of indicators of illegal website usage.
Building on this research report, a Phase 3 technical report will be published at the end of 2025 alongside the Commission’s GSGB Year 3 (2025) Wave 2 publication. The Phase 3 report will outline the process for one of the project’s key output objectives: the creation of a suite of ‘illegal questions’ to monitor consumer engagement with illegal online gambling market over time. These questions will support both this project and the Commission’s ongoing GSGB. Instructions on the calculation of this index will be detailed in the upcoming Phase 3 technical report.
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Last updated: 18 September 2025
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