Gambling Commission steps up efforts to tackle black market betting as realisation of illegal threat finally hits home

A little over a year ago, Gambling Commission chief executive Andrew Rhodes sat in front of a group of MPs and explained how he felt that talk of black market betting was overblown.

“I think the risk is overstated,” he said in response to a question from Damian Green MP, “but I do not think there is no risk. A lot of people around the industry will tell you that within the GB market, to be technically correct about it, the size of the black market is very small as they estimate the position to be, but estimates do vary.”

Despite his uncertainty about the threat, Rhodes went on to described how the Gambling Commission had been “very active” in tackling black market operations, blocking four of the “top ten illegal domains”, having 17 sites removed from Google’s search engine, teaming up with Mastercard to help restrict payment options, and serving cease-and-desist notices against “a number of media outlets for advertising illegal gambling”.