The United Kingdom has one of the most liberal gambling markets in the world. Since the Gambling Act 2005 became law, it allowed companies to apply for licences. In acquiring one, they were able to open their own online betting sites. And this has led to the gambling industry growing at a considerable rate ever since. The UK now plays host to a large number of betting sites, casinos, poker rooms and more. And these are all licensed by the United Kingdom Gambling Commission. Of course, the average person is not aware of how many of these exist in the country. A single company is able to be the operator of many different gambling sites, too.
Is it possible to know how many betting sites there are in the UK, though? More so, would it be possible to find out the number of unlicensed sites serving the country? Here, we’re going to delve a little further into the number of betting sites currently active. Information on these gambling sites as a whole may be quite scarce. And the likelihood is that unlicensed gambling sites won’t be as easy to track. After all, by law, they shouldn’t be operating for UK players. In this respect, if they were easy to track, it would be easy for the Government to restrict access.
What Does the Gambling Commission Say?
The Gambling Commission features a full register of its licensed businesses. This figure stands at a few below the 3,000 mark. Yet this is the total number of businesses licensed by the body. Thus, it includes land-based establishments, as well as online betting sites.
Filtering that down so that only remote gambling features brings a clearer picture. As things stand at the moment, 949 companies hold licences from the Commission. Those can be further filtered between the different areas of gambling.
Separating them up into their respective areas, you get the following figures:
- Betting Sites: 287
- Bingo: 74
- Casino: 221
- Lotteries: 305
Not included in those figures are other categories, including Game and Betting Hosts (98), Gambling Software (437) and Machines (20). Adding all those numbers up comes to a total of 1,442. Yet it is key to remember one point – a company can provide many gambling options via one site.
It is not uncommon to visit a sports betting site and find casino games there alongside. The same is true of bingo options at some casinos, and so on. And that is why the total figure noted above is a lot higher than the 948 companies.
When you compare this to the non-remote figure, there is a big difference. A total of 2,314 companies hold a licence from the Commission for this type of gambling. Of course, you have to factor in various things for this. Land-based bingo halls, arcades, bookies, casinos and so on.
You can find gambling games at service stations, airports, pubs, etc. When you consider all this, the land-based scene is bound to be larger. At least as far as the number of licences it possesses go.
The likelihood is that there are more online sites providing gambling opportunities. And as mentioned before, this is due to a company being able to launch many sites. For that, the company only needs a to own one or two licences. This depends upon the gambling content it wants to provide. It does make it difficult to gather information on exactly how many sites exist, though.
There are many sites claiming to provide info on the official number of active betting sites in the UK. Yet these would need updating on a frequent basis. And that’s because new companies are coming forward often to try and get a licence. While those websites give a bit of an insight into the number, they aren’t super reliable. Especially because of a single business being able to own various sites under its name.
If we wanted to guess at a figure, if we assumed there were roughly ten brands per license, on average, that would mean there are 10,000 sites out there.
A Closer Look at a License
To make this clearer, we will take a closer look at one of the companies owning a UK licence. One of the most popular online brands is 888, which has three separate sections of its site. They are 888 Sport, 888 Casino and 888 Poker. Yet there is much more to this business than may meet the eye. Visiting the licence page on the Commission site for 888 reveals a lot more. Four licences are visible there, which are:
- Bingo
- Casino
- General Betting Standard – Real Event
- General Betting Standard – Virtual Event
They cover the brand to offer bingo games, casino games, and sports betting on real and virtual events. All have the same licence number – Remote 039028-R-319297-012. But you can see much more down the left-hand side of the website.
The company has a single trading name, which is 888. But clicking on the Domain Names button reveals that it owns 377 of these. That’s 377 separate websites which fall under the responsibility of this company. And they all operate under the licences held from the Gambling Commission.
Yet, once again, you need to take a bit more of a closer look at these domains. Only a select group of them are active sites. A large number of them are inactive or white label sites instead (run by the license holder but the brand owned independently). Yet they all fall under the collection owned by 888 and licensed by the UKGC.
It is common for some licenses to have hundreds of different white label domains that operate under them. This is most common for bingo and then casino. This makes estimating the number of active sites difficult, without going through every single license. Even then the number would be out of date within days.
As for the inactive ones, well, these are sites that no longer exist. They were part of the license for a time, but have since closed down and aren’t accessible anymore. The Commission website also lists any regulatory actions that the operator has experienced. 888 has one of those, which occurred in February of 2022. At that time, it received a penalty of £9,409,756.48 from the regulatory body.
If you live in Great Britain, you can also report suspicious gambling operators. Thus, if a website offers you the chance to gamble and doesn’t own a licence, you can report it.
And Unlicensed Betting Sites?
It is difficult to determine the number of unlicensed betting sites operating in the UK. As noted, they aren’t as trackable as those holding official licences. But the Commission does have certain protocols in place to disrupt illegal operators.
Reports and intelligence provide the regulatory body with insights into them. Information is on hand for you to view about the action taken by the Commission on them.
In the period between April 2021 and March 2022, various illegal sites became targets. A total of 68 sites received Stage 1 – Cease and Desist notices. And nine received Stage 2 – Cease and Desist notices. Notifications were also sent out to 19 hosting companies about such unlicensed sites. It is also the case that two websites ended up suspended as a result of Commission activity. And 23 had their geolocation internet protocol (IP) blocked.
There is not quite as much of this going on as there is in other countries, though. The Netherlands, for example, has cracked down on unlicensed brands in a heavy way. One year ago, Dutch authorities took strong action against illegal operators.
Foreign bookmakers providing content to Dutch players are often banned. Sander Dekker, Dutch Minister of Legal Protection, spoke of those operators. He said that if they do not take their sites down of their own volition, legal action takes over. Such actions take place to direct Dutch players towards legal gambling options. This, Dekker says, is to stop unlicensed operators affecting the regulated market. A healthy betting ecosystem is, after all, required.
Internet gaming and gambling came about first in Scandinavian countries. And it is likely that because of this, Sweden has the highest rate of online gambling in the world. Sites, such as the 888 brand, thrive in such locations. Figures from 2019 suggest online gambling facilities there make over $2.5 billion.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the Swedish government took action. It imposed a SEK5,000 (£400) weekly deposit limit and SEK100 (£10) bonus limit. Those limitations ran until November of 2020, but they didn’t see players hold-up. In January of 2022, the government removed remaining limitations. And Sweden remains atop the collection of countries with avid online gamblers.
Another country which has a bigger gambling industry than the United Kingdom is the USA. Online gambling may not be legal in all 50 states, but this is of little consequence. Where it is accessible, gambling thrive. And this brings a lot of money in from taxes.
The strict gambling laws which governed the country for a long time are no longer there. In 2018, the Supreme Court overturned the PASPA law restricting legal sports betting. And this made it possible for each state to introduce their own sports betting laws. Since that time, various states have done exactly that. And with gambling hubs like Nevada and Atlantic City, the USA has a great gambling industry.
Without a doubt, both Sweden and the United States of America operate good conditions for gambling companies to operate in legally. Alongside the UK, they offer a large selection of online betting sites. This doesn’t stop unlicensed betting platforms from infiltrating the market, though. And there are some players who go for these sites instead of the legal options, too.
Licensed Elsewhere and Operating in Many Countries
It may be the case that an online betting site holds a licence to operate in various places. This is often the case with licensing bodies like the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA). Or even Curacao eGaming. These licences lay out certain regulations that a gambling site needs to follow. Yet most of the time, it doesn’t dictate the countries that such a site can provide its services to.
A licence from the MGA may see a betting site provide gambling to many countries. This means that they have the potential to reach a wider audience.
Doubtless, this is something that many gambling operators would want to achieve. The more people playing at their sites, the better the revenue from them, right? Yet this type of activity doesn’t sit well with separate country governments.
And that’s because any tax money is not going to them. Governments miss out on a lot of tax revenue due to this kind of gambling activity. Which is one of the major reasons they try to stop unlicensed gambling from happening.
Yet for those players in locations where online gambling is not legal, such sites are sought out. And this is because they provide an option that is otherwise unavailable. When it comes to the UK, there are plenty of legal and licensed options to utilise. But for someone in a state like Utah or South Carolina, online gambling is not as accessible. Thus, people may turn to offshore platforms or visit a neighbouring state instead.
This isn’t a problem for anyone based in the UK, though. And that’s because licensed betting sites do exist and are easy to access online. Tighter gambling restrictions may be on the horizon, of course. But this shouldn’t limit the number of available platforms in a big way. As things stand at the moment, the UK has a large number of betting sites to join, despite