UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) will use new data sets to better understand the true size of black market operations – that is, unlicensed gaming websites targeting Brits.
UKGC takes first step to understand the scale of black market operations
This is the last great commitment of The British gambling watchdog provide a clear understanding of the sector, including the number of problematic players and now the number of unlicensed websites and their impact on the market.
The exact number and percentage of black market transactions have been a topic of conversation not only British pigeon industry AND falcons. In countries such as Germany and Sweden, the black market has become the subject of intense debate, with independent critics arguing that available official data underestimates the scale of these operations.
The regulator will also try to find out why consumers turn to unregulated market in the first place. Commercial groups such as Ratesand game tips (BGC) in the UK and Swedish Gaming Association (BOS) in Sweden are pushing for consumers to turn to unregulated gambling sites because they find the offers of regulated gambling sites unsatisfactory.
This is due to the restrictive gambling laws that online gambling operators have to deal with. In its statement, the UKGC clarified:
“By better understanding why and how consumers access unlicensed gambling sites, we can identify ways to use data to identify unlicensed websites and measure consumer usage.”
The UKGC intends to use both web traffic and gambling data in the hope of accurately estimating the size of the black market, using gross gambling revenue as the main benchmark.
This technique has already been tested in the regulated gaming sectoruse data from regulated websites to test whether this method can adequately estimate gross gaming revenue.
What makes people go abroad and play?
The UKGC explained that there are many reasons why consumers might turn to the offshore market, including the “best deals” mentioned above, as well as people’s motivation to avoid it. Know your customer documentation controls that will become common in the country, as well as people who already have a weak attitude towards gambling and have signed up for STOP PLAY and therefore cannot access regulated games of chance.
The UKGC has recognized that there are inherent limitations in model accuracy and He described the controversial aspects of his testing process.
The regulator also warned that this is only the first step in truly understanding the scale of the unlicensed market and that by taking an iterative and transparency-focused approach, the regulator hopes to engage more stakeholders who could contribute useful information that will allow it to do a better job.
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