Illegal Betting Traffic in Britain Reaches New Heights According to IFHA Research

Traffic to unlicensed betting sites in Britain has climbed sharply since late 2021, and fresh analysis from the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities tracks the scale of that shift in detail. During the first seven months of 2026 unlicensed platforms recorded 19.4 visits for every 100 visits to licensed operators, a marked increase from the roughly one visit per 100 that existed in late 2021. Monthly unique visitors to illegal sites rose from 1.8 million in 2022 to more than 25 million by 2025, while users on those platforms spent longer sessions and opened additional pages compared with activity on regulated alternatives.

Tracking the Monthly Visitor Surge

Figures compiled by the IFHA show steady acceleration across the measured period. The jump from 1.8 million monthly unique visits in 2022 to over 25 million in 2025 reflects an expansion that continued even after some moderation appeared in the opening months of 2026. Observers note that the ratio of unlicensed to licensed visits moved from a low base of approximately one per 100 to nearly twenty per 100 within roughly four and a half years, and the data capture both desktop and mobile access patterns across Britain.

Changes in User Behaviour on Unlicensed Platforms

Alongside the growth in visitor numbers, session metrics on illegal sites lengthened. Users viewed more pages per visit and remained on those domains for extended periods, patterns that held across the years covered by the IFHA dataset. Although a modest easing occurred early in 2026, the overall volume remained substantially higher than the levels recorded at the start of the measurement window. Researchers compiled these indicators from aggregated traffic logs supplied by participating monitoring services, allowing consistent comparison between licensed and unlicensed domains.

Data Sources and Measurement Approach

The IFHA draws on traffic intelligence that monitors domain-level activity across multiple jurisdictions, and the British subset forms one part of a wider international comparison. According to the report referenced in industry coverage, the methodology isolates visits tied to racing betting pages and excludes unrelated traffic. This approach produces the ratio of 19.4 unlicensed visits per 100 licensed visits during the first seven months of 2026, alongside the absolute visitor counts that reached more than 25 million monthly unique users by the end of 2025.

Year-by-Year Progression of Key Metrics

Breaking the numbers into annual snapshots reveals consistent upward movement. In 2022 the baseline stood at 1.8 million monthly unique visitors to illegal sites. Subsequent years recorded successive increases that culminated in the 2025 peak above 25 million. The visit ratio moved in tandem, shifting from the late-2021 level of one unlicensed visit per 100 licensed visits to the 19.4 figure observed through July 2026. Although early 2026 showed slight softening in some session metrics, the absolute volumes stayed far above earlier readings, and the ratio remained elevated compared with 2021.

Implications for Licensed Operators and Regulators

Licensed operators face competition from platforms that operate without British licences, and the IFHA data quantify the scale of that competition in terms of visitor traffic. Regulators receive these measurements as one indicator of market leakage, while the federation continues to publish updates that allow comparison across racing jurisdictions. The documented rise in pages viewed per session and time spent on unlicensed sites supplies additional context for any future policy discussions, because those behavioural markers accompany the headline visitor totals.

Conclusion

The IFHA analysis supplies a clear numerical record of how traffic to illegal betting websites in Britain expanded between late 2021 and mid-2026. Monthly unique visits climbed from 1.8 million to more than 25 million, the unlicensed-to-licensed visit ratio advanced from one per 100 to 19.4 per 100, and users on those sites recorded longer, deeper sessions even after modest easing appeared early in 2026. These measurements, drawn from consistent traffic monitoring, stand as the central facts of the reported trend.