The UK Gambling Commission released a new analysis report on consumer participation in illegal online gambling sites this Tuesday, admitting a fact that has been troubling regulators: the VPN technology originally used to protect user privacy is now becoming the biggest blind spot in tracking illegal gambling activities. This 21-month data series was updated to February 2026, using the duration of visits to illegal gambling sites as a proxy indicator of consumer engagement, showing a brief peak in participation in the fall of 2024, but it did not reappear the following year, indicating that the illegal market is more characterized by intermittent fluctuations rather than continuous expansion. The real turning point that made the data ambiguous occurred in July 2025—after the "Online Safety Act" was officially implemented, data from the UK Communications Office and the application analytics company Similarweb both showed that VPN usage jumped from the previous level and stabilized at an increase of about 40%. The UK Gambling Commission had previously applied a 30% upward adjustment to the data to compensate for VPN-hidden traffic, but now it seems that this correction factor is no longer sufficient.
The "Online Safety Act" triggers a surge in VPN usage
The "Online Safety Act," which took effect in July 2025, was intended to strengthen online content regulation and protect users from harmful content, but its side effects are quietly fermenting in the illegal gambling sector. The law requires internet service providers to implement stricter access restrictions on certain types of illegal content, which in turn has prompted a large number of gambling users to turn to VPN tools to bypass the blockades. Tracking data from the Communications Office shows that VPN usage saw a steep increase in the month the law was implemented, and thereafter stabilized at a level about 40% higher than before implementation.
The UK Gambling Commission had to incorporate this new variable into the trend analysis model, setting up two VPN usage scenarios for estimation, causing the confidence interval of the data since mid-2025 to be significantly widened. More troublesome is that web traffic analysis itself cannot cover all the reach channels of illegal gambling—neither app access nor direct connection methods are within the monitoring scope, making these traffic estimates more suitable for judging trend directions rather than accurately measuring participation scale. Tim Livesley, head of the Commission's Data Innovation Center, admitted that the team is continuously improving the methodology, while also soliciting additional data sources from other international regulatory bodies and licensed operators for cross-validation.
The shield for protecting user privacy has become a blind spot for regulation
The widespread use of VPNs presents a dilemma for global gambling regulators. The original design of this technology was to protect user privacy and network security, but in the illegal gambling sector, it can also effectively hide transaction traces, obscure geographical locations, and bypass payment blockades. The UK Gambling Commission had publicly admitted in November last year that it was unable to reliably estimate the amount of money players spend on illegal platforms, at that time rejecting three measurement paths based on time method, channelization method, and survey method. Six months later, the situation has not only not improved, but has become even more complex with the further spread of VPNs.
The effectiveness of enforcement largely depends on the accuracy of the data—whether it is payment blockades, domain takedowns, or collaboration with financial institutions and advertising platforms to combat, precise targeting of the activity range and user scale of illegal platforms is necessary. When a large amount of traffic is hidden by VPN tunnels, regulators are essentially swinging punches blindfolded. Representatives from the Dutch Gambling Authority and the UK Revenue and Customs also participated in a spring evidence seminar on illegal gambling enforcement and data issues, indicating that the measurement difficulties brought by VPNs are not unique to the UK.
PASA official website continues to track global gambling regulatory enforcement and data governance dynamics, noting that the VPN dilemma disclosed by the UK Gambling Commission is quite representative in mature gambling markets. When the regulatory layer tightens content audits with legislation on one hand and blocks illegal websites with technical means on the other, users' countermeasures are also being upgraded simultaneously. Markets in Canada, the Philippines, and Australia have faced similar challenges in recent years—the tools for protecting consumers and evading regulation essentially use the same set of encryption technologies, and this technological barrier is becoming a common problem in global gambling regulation.
————
This article is from "PASA-Global iGaming Leaders," a gambling industry news channel: https://t.me/pasa_news
Original in-depth gambling channel: https://t.me/gamblingdeep
Free data reports: @pasa_research
PASA Matrix: @pasa002_bot
PASA official website: https://www.pasa.news
