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Illegal gambling operators could take as much as £800 million in bets on Premier League matches this season, the Betting and Gaming Council has forecast, just as English football begins its first campaign without gambling brands on the front of matchday shirts.
The trade body estimates that around £20 million was staked with unlicensed operators during the opening weekend. It expects a normal Premier League weekend to generate between £15 million and £20 million in illegal betting activity.
The bigger concern, from the BGC’s perspective, is what comes next.
It predicts the figure could reach £1 billion a year in the 2027/28 season, when a new 25% tax rate on remote betting is due to take effect. The forecast adds to the industry’s argument that higher taxes and regulatory costs could make licensed operators less competitive against offshore and illegal gambling sites.
The BGC has not publicly set out the methodology behind its £800 million and £1 billion estimates, or identified the analysis used to produce them.
A changing tax bill
The tax structure facing UK gambling companies is already shifting.
General Betting Duty currently stands at 15% of bookmakers’ profits. From 1 April 2027, online betting will move to a separate 25% rate. Horse racing bets placed remotely and wagers made through self-service betting terminals in licensed premises will remain subject to the existing 15% rate, as will spread betting and pool betting.
Online casino operators have already faced a much sharper increase. Remote Gaming Duty, covering activities such as online casino games and slots rather than sports betting, rose from 21% to 40% on 1 April 2026.
The BGC has pointed to warnings from H2 Gambling Capital that the next tax increase will place further strain on licensed betting businesses.
There is another cost increase ahead. Gambling Commission operating licence fees are scheduled to rise by 25% from 1 October 2026.
Together, the changes are becoming part of a wider industry campaign focused on the risk of customers moving outside the regulated system.
The fight for bettors is moving online
The BGC is also pointing to the growing visibility of unlicensed gambling brands.
It cited WARC analysis suggesting unregulated operators now account for almost half of UK gambling advertising expenditure. H2 Gambling Capital has separately forecast that the amount wagered with illegal operators in Britain could rise from almost £17 billion this year to more than £33 billion by 2028.
Unlicensed operators do not face the same tax obligations, licensing costs or consumer protection requirements as companies operating under a UK Gambling Commission licence. The gap is central to the BGC’s argument.
Grainne Hurst, the council’s chief executive, linked the growth of the illegal market to lost tax revenue and reduced funding for British sport. She also argued that licensed businesses are required to meet strict standards on player protection, safer gambling and financial controls that illegal operators can simply avoid.
The BGC says the regulated betting and gaming sector supports more than 109,000 jobs, contributes £6.8 billion to the UK economy and generates over £4 billion in annual tax revenue.
Sponsorship crackdown gathers pace
The Premier League’s removal of gambling sponsors from the front of matchday shirts has not ended the debate over gambling’s presence in sport.
The BGC supports that change and has backed government plans to stop sports clubs from accepting sponsorship from gambling companies that do not hold a UK licence. It wants the restrictions widened to cover sponsorship across all British sports.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport opened a consultation on the proposed ban on 15 July. It is due to close at 11:59pm on 9 September 2026.
The argument now extends beyond shirt sponsorship. Illegal operators can still reach British consumers through online advertising, social media promotion, influencer activity and tipster accounts. That makes enforcement far less straightforward than removing a logo from a football shirt.
For the BGC, the Premier League figures are intended to show what is at stake. Its £800 million estimate cannot be independently assessed from the information released so far, but the direction of its campaign is clear: tougher action against illegal operators, alongside resistance to measures the industry believes could push more betting activity out of the licensed market.
The next major test will come in April 2027, when the higher remote betting duty takes effect. By then, the BGC expects illegal betting on English football’s biggest competition to be moving closer to the £1 billion mark.
Source: europeangaming.eu
