IFHA Study Puts Illegal Sites at One in Six UK Racing Betting Visits

A study published by the British Horseracing Authority counts 19.4 visits to illegal racing betting sites for every 100 to licensed ones this year, about one in six of all visits. It measures web traffic, not money, and it lands as racing counts the cost of another Budget.

• A study by the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities (IFHA), published by the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) on 6 November, counts 19.4 visits to illegal racing betting sites for every 100 to licensed ones from January to July 2026
• That is about 16% of all visits in the sample, or one in six, down from 26.6 per 100 in 2025 and up from about one per 100 in late 2021
• Summed monthly unique visitors to the illegal sites rose fourteenfold between 2022 and 2025, to 25.1 million, while licensed sites fell 34% to 94.6 million
• The Gambling Commission's own Illegal Gambling Index puts recent illegal site use at 2.5% of online gamblers, a survey of people rather than a count of visits
• BHA chief executive Brant Dunshea says progress on the government's illegal gambling taskforce "has been limited", after a Budget that raised Machine Games Duty to 25%

Illegal Racing Sites Have Grown Faster Than Enforcement Has Bitten

The study, written by Douglas Robinson for the IFHA Council on Anti-Illegal Betting and Related Crime and dated November 2026, tracks monthly unique visitors from UK internet protocol addresses to 301 betting websites that offer horse racing, 74 licensed and 227 illegal, from August 2021 to July 2026. The BHA published it with a press release on 6 November.

From January to July 2026 the illegal sites recorded 11.0 million summed monthly unique visitors against 56.9 million for licensed sites. The report expresses that as 19.4 illegal visits per 100 legal ones, a ratio that works out at about 16% of combined traffic. The BHA's release describes the same 19.4 figure as "around 1 in 5"; the report itself reserves one in five for 2025, when the ratio peaked at 26.6.

Illegal traffic rose from 1.8 million in 2022 to 13.4 million in 2024 and 25.1 million in 2025, while licensed traffic peaked at 184.8 million in 2023. Annualised, 2026 would give 18.9 million illegal visitors, more than 10 times 2022. The BHA's "seven-fold" figure comes from its release, not the report text: the 32 illegal sites taking bets on British racing in the IFHA's previous study drew 6.8 visits per 100 licensed visits this year, against 0.97 in late 2021.

Visitors are also staying longer. Mean visit duration on illegal sites rose from 5 minutes 38 seconds in late 2024 to 7 minutes 25 seconds, and pages per visit from 5.19 to 6.98, while licensed visits shortened from 11 minutes 18 seconds to 9 minutes 57 seconds. Licensed sites still lead on every measure.

Robinson Says Notices Are Not Results

The report cites Commission figures showing more than 3,100 cease-and-desist or disruption notices since April 2024 and almost 288,000 URLs removed, and says that sharp increase "has not yet shown significant impact". It says the 2026 easing could reflect enforcement, but "could also equally reflect changes in search visibility, domain migration, sporting-event timing or ordinary volatility". Robinson argues success should be judged by lasting falls in traffic, and warns that General Betting Duty of 25% on most remote betting from April 2027, with racing held at 15%, may still pull multi-sport bettors offshore.

Dunshea said the research "provides worrying evidence" that racing's warnings during the Gambling Act Review "are now being realised". He said the BHA would share the findings with the government and wants to work with Gambling Minister Vicky Foxcroft "to inject some urgency" into the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's Illegal Gambling Taskforce, which the BHA dates to January. In a BHA blog on 9 November, the authority said Regulus Partners modelling puts racing's losses from betting shop closures at up to £57 million a year in three years even at the 25% machine rate.

The Two Headline Numbers Do Not Contradict Each Other

The Commission's index, published on 5 November, found 2.5% of online gamblers used an illegal site in the past four weeks, from 3,569 survey respondents. That counts people. The IFHA counts visits to racing sites, and says its ratio is "not a conventional measure of market share or channelisation" because it captures no stakes, spend or accounts. A small group of heavy users can generate many visits, and the Commission's open banking study found most illegal payers still bet with licensed firms. Neither figure sizes the money.

On Direction, the Two Measures Now Agree

The Commission's dashboard, which uses Similarweb estimates of time spent on identified illegal sites, put September 2026 engagement 11% below a year earlier. The IFHA sample also shows 2026 running below the 2025 peak. Both point to some easing this year, which leaves the BHA's case resting on the four-year rise from 2021 rather than the latest months.

Racing's Exposure Is Specific, and So Is Its Lobbying

Illegal operators pay nothing into the Horserace Betting Levy, so leakage is a funding problem for racing before it is a tax problem for the Treasury. The BHA is also campaigning against duty rises, and the study's timing serves that argument. The engagement data is the stronger evidence, because longer visits are harder to dismiss as search noise.

The study shows illegal racing sites have become larger and stickier since 2021, and enforcement has not reversed that. Whether it is a market share problem, rather than a traffic one, is something no published figure yet answers.