Gambling Commission to Follow the Money After Referring £40m for Asset Freezing

Britain's regulator says it will go after the payments, advertising and game supply of illegal operators, not just their websites. Its own data shows how new that is: no payment provider received a cease and desist notice in the first half of this financial year.

• The Gambling Commission said on 9 November that its work against illegal gambling will increasingly "follow the money", targeting operators' payments, advertising and supply of games and sportsbooks as well as their websites
• It has referred more than £40m of suspected criminal funds to partner agencies for potential asset freezing since January, according to the Commission
• Between April and September it issued 1,005 cease and desist notices, against 741 in all of 2025/26, and reported 7.8 million URLs to search engines, of which about 3 million were removed
• The Commission's dashboard records no cease and desist notices to payment service providers from April to September, and three in 2025/26
• The announcement opens the first Illegal Gambling Awareness Week, run by the International Association of Gaming Regulators from 9 to 13 November

The Commission Says It Will Go After Business Models, Not Only Websites

The Gambling Commission said it has started broadening its focus beyond website disruption to "the money, assets and business models that support illegal operators", in a news release published on 9 November for the start of the International Association of Gaming Regulators' (IAGR) awareness week. It said it had already briefed UK industry leaders at its CEO Briefing on 5 November and regulators at the IAGR conference in October.

Sue Young, the Commission's Executive Director of Operations, said: "If you run an illegal gambling operation, we are coming after you, your business and your money." She said the Commission would interfere with illegal operators' "whole business models, disrupting their payments, hindering their advertising and stopping them from obtaining the games and sportsbooks they so heavily rely on". Since January, she said, it has referred over £40m of suspected criminal funds to partner agencies for potential asset freezing. The release does not name the agencies, say how much has been frozen, or name any payment firm.

The Disruption Figures Behind the Shift

The release repeats totals that Acting Chief Executive Sarah Gardner gave in her CEO Briefing speech on 5 November. From April to September the Commission reported 7,824,932 URLs to search engines, against 397,527 in the whole of 2025/26, and 3,038,969 were removed, against 266,667. It referred 2,201 websites for delisting, against 1,068, and 1,668 websites were taken down or geo-blocked, against 1,134. iGT reported the quarterly URL jump alongside the Commission's new Illegal Gambling Index on 7 November.

The release describes "more than 1,000 cease and desist notices issued to illegal operators". Gardner put the April to September figure at 1,005, issued to "advertisers and operators", and the Commission's illegal gambling dashboard splits that into 763 to illegal operators and 242 to advertisers or affiliates. Referrals to other agencies, regulators and law enforcement rose from 13 in the first quarter to 111 in the second, when four criminal investigations began. Gardner linked the scale-up to the £26m the government committed over three years, the first £7m of which arrived just over six months ago.

The Payment Lever Is a Promise, Not Yet a Record

Payments are the new part of the message, and the Commission's own data shows how little of that has been formal so far. The dashboard counts cease and desist notices to payment service providers separately: three in the second quarter of 2025/26 and none in any other quarter from April 2025 to September 2026. The £40m is a referral figure, and freezing sits with partner agencies. The Commission's open banking analysis in October found 3,426 payments to illegal operators in consenting people's bank data, so it can already see some of that money. Next quarter's payment line will show whether the shift is real.

URL Totals Measure Effort More Than Effect

URL referrals grew nearly twentyfold in half the time, but removals did not keep pace: search engines removed 67% of URLs reported in 2025/26 and 39% of those reported this year. Gardner told operators the Commission's focus "may evolve away from some of these numbers". The dashboard counted 586 illegal websites accessible in Great Britain in September, 4% more than a year earlier, even as estimated engagement fell 11%. Takedowns cut traffic to individual domains; they have not cut the supply of domains.

Supply Is Where Britain Can Copy the Netherlands

Stopping operators "obtaining the games and sportsbooks" points at licensed suppliers whose content reaches unlicensed sites. The Dutch regulator has already gone there, ordering Endorphina to keep its games off unlicensed Dutch sites. For British racing, where an IFHA study published by the BHA found illegal sites gaining ground despite more enforcement, pressure on supply and payments would matter more than another million delisted links.

The Commission has scaled up the measures it controls, and the numbers show it. The test of "follow the money" lies with the banks, payment firms and suppliers it does not control, and the Commission has not yet published what they have done.