Why the UK Gambling Commission Won't Reveal Its £26m Plans

Where the money came from, and why

The funding was confirmed in the Autumn Budget, and it’ll provide the Commission with £26 million in grant-in-aid over three years. ^[1]

It’ll be used to focus on three core elements: tackling illegal remote gambling, tackling illegal non-remote gambling, and increasing enforcement and legal capacity to pursue criminal proceedings where necessary. ^[2]

The timing of this funding couldn’t be any better, either. Reports suggest that the Gambling Commission was burning through reserves, which were forecasted to be £5 million for 2025/26, leaving it close to the £4 million reserve floor. ^[2]

Without this funding from the UK Government, those reserves were projected to dry up entirely by 2026/27, so the £26 million grant somewhat saved them.^[2]

The scale of the problem that the money is meant to fix

In 2023/24, the Commission issued 384 cease-and-desist and disruption notices, resulting in 136 website restrictions. During the period of 2024/25, this number jumped to 516 cease-and-desist notices to unlicensed operators, plus another 352 to advertisers and affiliates. ^[2]

Young cited an even higher figure in her speech at the KPMG Gibraltar eSummit. She said that, over the last financial year, the Commission and its partners delivered 741 cease-and-desists, reported 397,527 URLs to search engines (266,667 that were removed), referred 1,068 for delisting, and disrupted 1,134 sites through takedown or geo-blocking. 

This was all done with a lack of funding and the Commission being close to its reserves. The funding will help them tackle these issues on a greater scale, so we could see a larger disruption to the illegal gambling market in the coming years.