Report

Illegal online gambling - Phase 3: Understanding push factors for consumer engagement with illegal gambling websites

The Gambling Commission's research into consumer engagement with the illegal online gambling market.

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Published
20 October 2026

Last updated
20 October 2026 - Changes

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Contents

• Illegal online gambling - Phase 3: Understanding push factors for consumer engagement with illegal gambling websites

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• Executive summary
• Introduction
• How to read this report
• Methodology
• • Digital intelligence
  • Quantitative phase
  • Qualitative phase
  • Strengths of the approach
  • Limitations of the approach
  • Ethics and governance
• Findings
• • Exploring the persona audiences
  • Attitudes towards gambling companies and regulation
  • Influences shaping illegal gambling website usage
  • Exploring attitudes towards push factors and influences in more depth
• Conclusions and next steps
• Appendices
• • Appendix A – Qualitative pre-task
  • Appendix B - Focus group discussion guide
  • Appendix C - Qualitative sample breakdown of 15 participants
  • Appendix D - Digital intelligence list of platforms evidence was sourced from
  • Appendix E – Quantitative survey
  • Appendix F – Quantitative sample

Strengths of the approach

The mixed-methods design of this study is a core strength, allowing findings to be triangulated across 3 distinct phases.

Complementary insights

The stages were designed to build on one another. The digital intelligence phase mapped the online landscape, ensuring the quantitative and qualitative phases were grounded in real-world behaviours and consumer language.

Balancing breadth and depth

The quantitative survey provides a robust, statistically significant view of the prevalence of key push factors, scale of the audiences and the most statically significant drivers of illegal website usage. The qualitative interviews complement this by explaining the ‘why’, uncovering the nuances, emotions and rationale behind the numbers, bringing consumer experiences to life.

Capturing the full consumer journey

By combining the observed online behaviour (digital intelligence) with self-reported actions (quantitative) and lived experiences (qualitative), the research provides a comprehensive view of the underlying motivations and drivers that influence use of illegal gambling websites, enabling a deep and holistic view of the illegal market.

Integration of expert and lived experience

To ensure the research was grounded in real world perspectives, we conducted a joint workshop with the Gambling Commission’s [Lived Experience Advisory Panel (LEAP)] and Industry Forum (IF). This collaborative session focused on exploring key push factors with expert groups early on to directly shape the design of the quantitative questionnaire, strengthening the relevance and validity of the research.

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Limitations of the approach

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Last updated: 20 October 2026

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