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  3. Phase 4: Illegal Gambling Index – Technical Report

Report

Phase 4: Illegal Gambling Index – Technical Report

The Gambling Commission’s technical report detailing the development of the Illegal Gambling Index.

Published
5 November 2026

Last updated
5 November 2026 - Changes

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Contents

Timeline of the approach

The full report has a comprehensive description of the multi-phased methodology to meeting this project’s objectives. A short overview has been provided in the following timeline:

Timeline of the approach

Step

Timeline of the approach

Initial Qualitative stage

Focus group with 11 members of the Gambling Commission’s Lived Experience Advisory Panel (LEAP) to explore consumer pathways into online illegal gambling and test questionnaire content for the quantitative stage.

Quantitative stage

The quantitative incidence screening questionnaire was conducted with 1,000 individuals who had gambled online in the last 4 weeks, excluding those that had only played National Lottery products2. Within this questionnaire, a suite of indicators of illegal gambling, motivations, factors and experiences were presented to respondents. Data and re-contact consent from this survey was used to shape a subsequent qualitative phase, speaking to those who gamble with a range of experiences and engagement in the online illegal market.

Qualitative stages

10 online depth interviews with respondents who completed the online survey, to delve into their pathway into illegal gambling, recounting levels of awareness of engagement with illegal websites, the role of regulation, whether they do any research to vet these websites, their motivations for using these websites, and attitudes towards future use of illegal websites.

2 focus groups with a total of 7 individuals recruited from the Commission’s wider lived experience network, peer facilitated by members of LEAP, exploring experiences of using illegal gambling websites while registered to Gamstop.

Following this, the Commission asked Yonder to develop a proposal for Phase 2 of the project, building upon the findings from the mixed-methodology project earlier in the year3. The key objectives were to test and validate the findings from the first phase, as well as drafting questions based on the data that could be taken forward into the Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB).

Quantitative survey

An online quantitative survey with 2,000 adults who had gambled online at least once in the past 4 weeks, excluding those that had only played National Lottery products, was conducted. The survey was created based on learnings from Phase 1 on the most reliable indicators of illegal websites that could be used to gauge engagement.

Based on the responses received from the survey, as well as extensive survey design experience in both the Commission and Yonder, a workshop session was held to assess the strength of each illegal gambling indicator, how they might be refined for the GSGB, and how they could be combined into a single, trackable metric (a composite index) for GSGB stakeholders.

The newly developed illegal questions were added to the 2025, Wave 2 GSGB survey, fielded in between April 2025 to July 2025. These pilot questions were included on the online version of the GSGB throughout 2025 and have been included in all subsequent waves.

Whilst the GSGB questions were being piloted, Yonder continued to develop the analysis approach for these questions. Yonder delivered a technical report to the Commission outlining the question and index development. This report was reviewed by the Commission and scheduled to be published alongside the first illegal gambling GSGB data release.

The Commission received the first quarterly wave of data from the piloted GSGB questions and analysed the data using Yonder’s original index approach. Within this process, refinements to the index were made, including the removal of questions relating to intentionally using illegal gambling websites and the upgrading of the strength of one of the statements.

The Commission has added a section to Yonder’s original technical report to reflect these changes.

Phase 3 is a mixed-method study building on the findings from previous phases to develop an analytical methodology for quantifying persona composition and the primary 'push factors' contributing to consumer usage of illegal gambling websites.

Note: This phase sits outside the scope of this report, which discusses the development of the Illegal Gambling Index only.

This technical report details the approach taken to developing statements concerning consumer usage of illegal gambling websites for the GSGB, as well as providing a suite of recommendations for future-proofing the question for future iterations of the GSGB.

This report is also published alongside the ‘Initial findings from new data on consumer engagement with illegal gambling websites’ report, which presents initial GSGB findings based on data collected across 4 waves running quarterly between April 2025 and April 2026, with a combined sample of around 14,000 respondents who completed the survey online.

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Strengths and limitations
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