Illegal Gambling Growth: Illegal Streaming Of Sports Events In Great Britain
The piece summarizes a report released on January 15, 2026 by the Campaign for Fairer Gambling, based on analysis from Yield Sec, arguing that illegal sports streaming is becoming a major gateway for growth in illegal online gambling in Great Britain.
It claims illegal online gambling operators now control about 9 percent of Great Britain’s 8.2 billion pound online gambling market in the first half of 2025, and that the ecosystem is expanding beyond its traditional focus on underage users and people who self exclude via GamStop, toward mainstream audiences via pirated sports streams.
On scale, it reports 3.1 billion illegal stream views of 90 seconds or more across the top 10 sports in 2024, and 1.6 billion such views in the first half of 2025.
It also says 89 percent of illegal stream views in 2024 and the first half of 2025 involved malware style threats such as spyware and keystroke logging, and that 89 percent of illegal sports streaming content carried advertising for illegal and unlicensed gambling.
