British Gambling Commission to Crack Down on Illegal Lotteries

(AsiaGameHub) –   This announcement follows society lotteries achieving a record £1 billion in gross gambling yield during the previous financial year.

UK – The Gambling Commission has disclosed that society lotteries in Great Britain have set new records for two consecutive years, generating over £1bn in Gross Gambling Yield (GGY) and raising £484.6 million for charitable causes. These figures were shared by Ian Angus, the regulator’s policy director, during a speech at the Lotteries Council Annual Conference.

While celebrating the sector’s financial achievements, Angus also repeated the regulator’s commitment to take stricter enforcement action against unlicensed gambling—including unregulated land-based operations—backed by new government funding.

According to regulatory data, the society lotteries sector saw a 4.7 per cent year-on-year increase in GGY for the 2024/25 financial year. Funding for good causes rose by 4.8 per cent. Players were also awarded more than £316 million in prizes during the same period.

Data from the Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB) shows that society lotteries are now the second most popular form of gambling in the country. Approximately 17 per cent of the adult population—an estimated 9 million people—played a society lottery between July and October last year. This places the sector ahead of general betting (10 per cent) and only behind the National Lottery (32 per cent).

The growth is largely driven by digital and telephone sales. Remote sales dominated the sector, accounting for £793.3 million of the total GGY, compared to £314.9 million generated through non-remote channels.

Action on illegal lotteries

Despite the sector’s success, Angus warned that illegal operators pose a significant threat to both consumers and the reputation of legitimate charities. To combat this, the Gambling Commission is scaling up enforcement efforts using a newly allocated £26 million in Treasury funding, spread over three years.

Angus stated that the funding will allow the regulator to automate processes, map the dynamics of the black market, and establish Great Britain’s first national risk assessment for the illegal market in partnership with the government’s Illegal Gambling Taskforce.

The Commission’s “upstream” disruption strategy has already delivered notable results, he added. Social media platforms removed 356 illegal lotteries in 2025—nearly double the 190 removed in 2024. An additional 79 have already been taken down in 2026. In the last financial year, the Gambling Commission also issued 741 Cease and Desist notices, took down or geo-blocked 1,134 websites, and successfully removed 266,667 illicit URLs from search engines.

“Illegal gambling is certainly a major threat to the society lotteries sector,” Angus said, urging legitimate operators to continue reporting intelligence to help “frustrate the illegal market.”

Focus on charity lottery compliance

Angus also addressed consumer safety, noting that the latest GSGB annual report showed 2.7 per cent of the total adult population scored an 8+ on the Problem Gambling Severity Index, indicating negative consequences and potential lack of control.

While society lotteries are statistically proven to be lower-risk products, Angus cautioned operators against complacency, pointing out that individuals at the highest risk of harm typically engage with a mix of different gambling products.

To support compliance, Angus highlighted the regulator’s newly launched “Licence Support” service. Following a successful pilot in 2024, the service went live earlier this year to provide operators with a single point of contact for technical expertise, guidance, and faster query turnaround times.

New code for prize draws

The speech concluded with a mention of broader market shifts, including the implementation of the government’s new voluntary code for prize draws, which came into effect on May 20. While the Gambling Commission does not regulate free draws and prize competitions, Angus stressed that the watchdog will continue to closely police the boundary between those products and illegal lotteries to protect the integrity of the licensed market.

In other news, the Gambling Commission has wound down its [activity] in April 2020 at the start of the pandemic; we launched our Covid dataset (also known as the Market Impact data) based on information collected from a number of the largest gambling operators.