The UK Gambling Commission recently released a report indicating that due to the limitations of existing research methods, it is impossible to accurately assess the scale of spending in the UK's illegal online gambling market. The report discusses the shortcomings of various estimation methods and proposes future directions for improvement to enhance regulatory effectiveness.
Research Methods and Limitations
The Gambling Commission detailed three methods for estimating the scale of illegal online gambling: dwell time method, channel segmentation method, and survey method. The dwell time method estimates spending by converting website engagement data, the channel method is based on a comparison of legal and illegal channel data, and the survey method relies on player recall. However, the regulatory body emphasized that all these methods have significant flaws. Survey data is distorted due to unreliable consumer memory, and the dwell time and channel methods suffer from small sample sizes, outdated data, or inability to cover app usage, leading to high estimation uncertainty.
Current Data Analysis Results
Preliminary studies based on the dwell time and channel methods show that sports betting is the most popular activity on illegal sites, accounting for 34%, followed by bingo games and slot machines. However, the study sample only involved 117 players, which is not representative. Meanwhile, legal market data shows that casinos earn £1.12 per minute, higher than slot machines at £0.32, but the data is from 2018-19 and is outdated. The regulatory body pointed out that these results cannot provide a reliable market overview, and the margin of error could cause spending estimates to deviate by tens of millions of pounds.
Future Improvement Directions
To improve estimation accuracy, the Gambling Commission plans to take several measures, including using data from visitors to illegal websites, updating betting pattern reports, monitoring VPN download trends, and key search terms. The Commission emphasizes the need to strengthen cooperation with the technology, financial sectors, and international partners, and to invest in intelligence capability building. The regulatory body stated that the threat of illegal gambling is adaptive and requires continuous efforts to build a resilient framework to protect consumer interests.
