UKGC’s new strategy targets illegal online gambling

Added: May 15, 2024

The UKGC, under the leadership of its CEO Andrew Rhodes, has been known for employing high-risk strategies in fighting against illegal gambling activities.

For the bettering of interventions’ success and to prevent such vendors from entering the UK’s gambling market, the Commonwealth Gambling Commission works closely with various organizations such as the National Crime Agency as well as the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit or Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs Division.

The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) worked with other enforcement agencies to completely get rid of illegal Facebook lotteries by levying heavy penalties on people who were running these lotteries which don’t have permits. To prevent any escalation, UKGC has shifted gears from controlling to preventing the spread of illegal gambling businesses through the use of “upstream disruptions”. This entails putting in place proactive strategies with an aim of nipping for illegal operating behaviors in the bud before they grow into crime.

The Commission identifies illegal websites that are particularly risky especially because they target vulnerable people, such as problem gamblers, by using a mix of algorithms and data.

To prevent people from visiting such sites, they have teamed up with financial institutions and internet service providers thus canceling their links and warning the most serious cases besides taking them to court. In 2023 alone the British Gambling Commission shut down numerous sites plus Facebook profiles being used in illegal betting, doling out several hundreds more off these offenses.

In several years, the UKGC has intensified its enforcement campaigns and has been consistent in calling for greater legal powers to effectively fight against illegal gambling. Further legal powers will come, once the ongoing legislative processes in Parliament have concluded.

UKGC