The Gambling Commission has published a study of Open Banking data which suggests the use of the black market is now “embedded within existing gambling behaviour.” But with nearly half of those using an illegal operator rated above eight on the PGSI, the growing popularity of the black market represents a direct threat to preventing gambling harm.
A new study conducted by the Gambling Commission has suggested that the use of illegal gambling sites is now “embedded within existing gambling behaviour,” and does not represent a sustained shift away from the licensed market.
However, though the analysis of illegal gambling transactions in anonymised banking data suggested illegal gamblers also regularly frequent regulated operators, the PGSI is significantly higher for customers accessing the black market.
“The regulator’s study of customer transactions to both legal and known illegal sites found that 45 percent of people who transact with illegal operators have a Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI) score of eight or more,” reported SBC News.
“In contrast, just 6 percent of people who transact with legal companies had a PGSI score of eight or more. A further 16 percent of those who transacted with illegal operators had a score of three-to-seven, in contrast to 8 percent who transacted with legal ones.”
The report is the latest in an ongoing analysis of UK consumer behaviour, and used the Commission’s Open Banking dataset to reveal that just 179 individuals made 3,426 transactions with illegal operators during the reporting period.
“As our transaction data is from an existing panel, we have Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI) scores for 146 of these individuals,” reported the Commission.
“Analysis of these 179 individuals’ transactions indicates that illegal gambling transactions typically occur within broader patterns of on-going legal gambling activity. Among those with repeated detected illegal transactions, 91 percent also engage with licensed gambling operators, indicating substantial overlap between the two.”
The data comes from 38,000 individuals recorded between July 2018 and July 2026, but the Commission added “this evidence is taken from a sample of the overall population that is not nationally representative.”
The report also only considered cash transactions from institutions that support open banking protocols.
“Other types of transactions, for example transactions with unlicensed operators made in cryptocurrencies, are not captured. Also, we only capture transactions with a subset of illegal operators, some of whom are not believed to be currently operating in Great Britain.”
“Therefore, there may be a significant number of transactions with illegal operators in the dataset that are not identified.”
Originally published on Coinslot on November 9, 2026. Republished with permission.