During the World Cup, Visits to Unlicensed Websites Soared

January 27, 2023 World Sports

During the 2022 Fifa World Cup, the number of users visiting unauthorized websites increased compared to the previous year. According to Yield Sec, 250,000 players viewed websites in December alone.

The 80,000 visitors in December 2022 were significantly more than in the same month the year before, according to Yield Sec, which conducted the study on behalf of the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC). A similar increase was also seen in November.

The World Cup, which was held in Qatar from November 20 to December 18, as well as important UK horse racing events like the Cheltenham Festival and Royal Ascot, were among the key athletic events that the analysis examined for 2022.

In total, 46% more people from the United Kingdom visited illegal websites in 2022 compared to the previous year, with about 148,000 people visiting these sites each month.

According to a different PwC study, clients utilizing unregulated betting sites more than doubled, from 210,000 in 2019 to 460,000 in 2020, and billions of dollars were wagered.

According to BGC CEO Michael Dugher, “This analysis highlights the severe threat the expanding risky, unregulated black market poses to gamblers.” “These unlicensed sites provide none of the safer gaming features advocated by our members, pay no taxes, employ no one, give nothing to sports or organizations that combat gambling harm, and take no action to safeguard vulnerable players.

“The threat posed by the illegal market has been treated with much too much complacency. The government and regulator must exercise extreme caution and avoid sweeping, intrusive affordability tests at low levels that drive more customers to these risky sites rather than dismissing the issue.

Yield Sec experts examined World Cup-related data and discovered that between November and December, online traffic to websites offering services to problem gamblers who had self-excluded from UK operators soared by about 83%.

Additionally, visits to websites not using the GamStop self-exclusion system—which all licensed operators must do—were up 82.7% annually as a result of 26.9% more unique users in the final two months of the year.

Over 64,500 vulnerable players looked for betting on black market websites during the two-month period, circumventing GamStop.

“Black market operators were preying on the weak while the regulated industry was going to great pains to protect young people during the World Cup and adhering to rigorous regulations and promoting safer gambling,” Dugher added.

According to the research, the World Cup sparked a number of concerning gambling tendencies in the UK, but not in the legalized market as some proponents of gambling restriction had feared, but rather in the risky, unregulated black market online.

“The threat posed by the illegal market has been treated with much too much complacency. Instead of brushing off the issue, the regulator and the Government need to exercise extreme caution and reject sweeping, intrusive affordability checks at low levels that drive even more customers to these risky sites,” the regulator said.

Further investigation revealed that, compared to the World Cup in 2018, 34.0% less betting advertisements were broadcast on TV during the World Cup group stages.

This, according to the BGC, was primarily caused by the voluntary “whistle-to-whistle” ban enacted by BGC members, according to which TV betting commercials for regulated operators are not allowed to air before the watershed at 9 o’clock from five minutes before the start of a game until five minutes after it ends.