Government urges action to curb rising gambling ad spending

(AsiaGameHub) –   New data outlining the trajectory of black market advertising spending has ramped up calls for the UK government to take action.

Forecasts from marketing intelligence firm WARC indicate that by September 2026, regulated gambling operators will account for just over 53% of UK gambling ad spend. However, the balance is set to shift in favor of the unregulated sector as early as 2028.

Total advertising spending in the 12 months from October 2025 to September 2026 is projected to hit £1.9bn, with regulated operators contributing £1.05bn — a 9.2% drop compared to the prior year.

Legacy media will face the sharpest cuts to gambling ad spend, with expenditures set to fall by as much as £45m, or 11.5%, per WARC, driven by higher production costs and longer lead times for campaigns.

Online advertising expenditure across video, social and search formats is also set to decline by 7.1%, or £33m, by September 2026.

In contrast, black market ad spending is expected to rise by 32% to reach £845m this current year.

This report arrives as pressure mounts on regulators and sports industry stakeholders to do more to curb the promotion of unlicensed gambling operators.

Betting and Gaming Council Chief Executive Grainne Hurst has urged the government to take further action to combat the black market, as unlicensed advertising spending draws closer to the unlicensed sector.

“The Government must go further and faster to clamp down on the black market before it is too late,” said Hurst, who noted that Members of Parliament are scheduled to debate gambling advertising later this week.

“Targeting licensed operators when their advertising spend is already falling will not reduce overall advertising; it will simply bolster the harmful illegal black market, which is aggressively targeting UK customers. This should sound alarm bells in Westminster.”

Tax takes its toll

Gambling operators of all sizes across the UK have warned that any tax increases will significantly harm their spending power and empower the black market.

However, in November, Rachel Reeves announced a rise in remote gaming duty from 21% to 40%, which has now come into effect, alongside an increase in general betting duty for remote betting to 25%, set to take effect in April 2027.

Following these policy changes, companies including Flutter, Entain and evoke all announced that their marketing budgets will likely be cut by as much as 20% to offset these new costs.

Even Paddy Power — a brand renowned for its attention-grabbing marketing stunts — confirmed last month that it is restructuring its marketing department, with redundancies possible for “a small number of staff”, according to a Flutter UK&I spokesperson.

Black market takes over

Conversely, black market gambling advertising, which largely takes place online where rules are less strictly enforced, is only growing faster.

Alongside this year’s rise to £845m, WARC predicts that illicit operator spending will reach £934m in 2027 and surpass £1bn in 2028.

This data emerges in the same week that Google announced it blocked more than 270 million gambling ads in 2025, a figure that pales in comparison to the overall scale of black market gambling advertising.

Prior research commissioned by the BGC and carried out by Alvarez & Marsal (A&M) found that operators are evading marketing filters used by search engines like Google by using names and brands linked to trusted organizations.

Specifically, affiliates promoting links to “not on GamStop” casinos have been found to have hijacked inactive websites, with the most high-profile example being a domain once used by Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party.

“Illegal operators are advertising aggressively online with no safeguards, no age checks and no consumer protections, posing a major risk to consumers,” said Hurst in February when the A&M report was released.

Sponsorship in the spotlight

According to WARC, sponsorship is growing even faster than advertising spending, with the firm reporting that unregulated operators will account for all sponsorship growth this year and make up more than half of total sponsorship spending by October 2027.

While overall sponsorship spending has continued to grow, rising from £158m in 2019/20 to a projected £260m in the 2026/27 season, spending from regulated companies peaked in 2021/22 and has declined every year since.

“This, in turn, has a significant impact on how visible and recognizable these unregulated companies are to UK consumers,” the report stated.

Premier League viewers will recognize this trend, as several teams still feature unlicensed operators as their main shirt sponsor, despite an upcoming ban on gambling front-of-shirt sponsors.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has launched a consultation on implementing a ban on unlicensed gambling sponsorships, with Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy stating that it is “not fair” that such companies can boost their profile without meeting the same standards as UK-licensed operators.

These proposals would deal a major blow to unlicensed operators. However, no timeline has been set for when the ban would be introduced if approved, meaning sponsorship spending will only continue to rise in the interim.

As Westminster prepares for the gambling advertising debate taking place on Thursday, 23 April, key industry stakeholders will undoubtedly be watching closely to see if MPs recognize the threat posed by the black market and the full scale of its spending power.