Black Market Gambling on the up in Europe

Research for the upcoming Gambling Review reveals significant increase in black market Gambling in European countries.

Uptick in Black Market Gambling in Europe

The Betting and Gaming Council (BCG) has announced the discovery of a “shocking scale’ of black market gambling in European countries. The information was highlighted from an industry research conducted by PriceWaterhouseCoopers on the behest of BGC with a view on the upcoming Gambling Review by UK Policy Makers.

The report revealed that UK residents betting/gaming on unlicensed betting/gaming websites increase from 220K to 460K in just two years. The amount of stakes amount to billions in GBPs.

The report also shows that other countries in Europe are even worsely affected. Black Market usage are: 66% in Norway, 57% in France, 23% in Italy, 20% in Spain, 9% increase in Denmark and 38% in Sweden. These are countries where the state introduced a monopoly or ban on gaming and betting in certain cases. The analysis suggests that “UK has a more ‘open’ online gambling market and currently has a smaller unlicensed market share than our European benchmarks”. This seems to confirm the notion that stricter regulations more often than not leads to an upsurge in black market activities.

The UK Gambling Commission in recent reports show a decline of problem gambling cases from 0.6 per cent to 0.3 per cent of the adult population. This decline are attributed to recently introduced safer gambling measures. UK operators are licensed to high standards which includes ID, Age Verification, No betting on credit card (except Lottery), self-exclusion schemes, deposit limits and time-outs.

In view of the analysis, BGC is suggesting to the Government on a targeted approach to gambling regulations rather than a blanket approach to try to stop black market gambling.