UK Gambling Regulator Under Fire as Unlicensed Sites Stay Live
The Coalition to End Gambling Ads found that two unlicensed online casinos, DonBet and MyStake, remained accessible to users in the UK without a VPN, according to a report the group provided to Bloomberg News. Both sites lacked a Gambling Commission licence and promoted themselves as “not on Gamstop,” a reference to the self-exclusion scheme that all UK-licensed operators must use.
The campaign group said it had alerted the regulator to both sites months before publication. The Gambling Commission declined to comment on individual operators or ongoing enforcement, but confirmed it uses its existing powers and works with domestic and international partners to tackle unlicensed gambling.
“We’ve got a regulator that has a statutory duty to protect people, which it isn’t fulfilling,” said Will Prochaska, director of the Coalition to End Gambling Ads.
The CEGA report also put licensed software suppliers under scrutiny. Gambling Commission rules bar licensed providers from supplying games to unlicensed operators accessible from the UK. According to the report, games from TaDa Gaming, Playson, Booming Games, Platipus Gaming and Skywind Holdings appeared on both sites in May. None of the five companies responded to Bloomberg’s requests for comment.
On the question of how that content got there, the Betting and Gaming Council said the branded material may not reflect actual supply relationships. A BGC spokesperson pointed to possible intellectual property theft, content cloning, unauthorised branding or third-party contract breaches. The council also said it had found cases where games displayed under licensed provider branding were not playable.
The UK government described itself as “deeply concerned about all forms of illegal gambling.” It has raised taxes on online operators, increased Gambling Commission funding, and is considering whether to bar unlicensed firms from sponsoring British sports teams, including Premier League football clubs. The Commission is also set to receive new powers to apply for website suspensions.
The source also points to recent Gambling Commission enforcement action against licensed operators, including a £2 million ($2.7 million) fine for Flutter Entertainment’s Paddy Power and Betfair brands over failures to identify problem gambling quickly enough. Critics argue the watchdog has been slow to use its existing powers against illegal operators.
💡TGJ Take
This is a supplier compliance story as much as a regulator story. If licensed game providers’ content appears on unlicensed UK-facing sites, those providers need to show whether the content was supplied, cloned or misused. The BGC’s IP-theft defence may be accurate in some cases, but it does not remove the need to monitor distribution chains. For affiliates, any partner using “not on Gamstop” messaging is a red flag that also creates reputational risk. The Commission’s new suspension powers are the right tool. The test will be how fast they get used.
