As covered yesterday's racing mailThe British horse racing authority deals with the results of the study published by The IFHA today, which are released the considerable growth of the website traffic on websites that are not licensed from 2021 to 2024 in the United Kingdom.
The study carried out by James Porteous, head of the IFHA Council for anti-ilegal betting and related crime, showed that in four years the total number of unique visits to 22 of the most popular non-copied locations, the bets need at the British race grew through 522%with over 600,000 unique visits per month takes place between January and September 2024.
In the same period, the number of unique visits per month grew to 10 legal licensed locations (all British races) until Just 49%.
It was also found that the total number of visits to these non -licensed locations was increased by increased 131% In four years with almost 1.3 million visits per month takes place between January and September 2024.
In the same period, the total number of visits in 10 legal licensed locations in Great Britain grew by just just 25%.
Although the study is constrained and does not represent the entire image, it is clear that the illegal market remains diminutive compared to the legal market, its growth has accelerated significantly in recent years.
Of course, this comes at a time when the British race has lost £ 1.6 billion The value of remote bets in just two years. In our survey of October 2023 “Right to Bet” among over 14,000 racing writers, it was found that this was found 1 to 10 already used the illegal market for their bets.
While the study between the political announcements of the British government has not been the direct cause of the British government in recent years, and in a change to the illegal market, the current trend is repeated that can be observed internationally in other countries, the market has customers driven away.
The incumbent managing director of BHA, Brant Dunshea, said:
“From the beginning, British Racing has warned the unintentional consequences of well -known political decisions in our sport from the start, including the risk of accidentally growing illegal market activities.
This study certainly shows that the threat becomes reality.
With less consumer rights and protection, they expose themselves to increased risk for every racing customer that leaves the legal market for the illegal. Operators that have not been licensed do not make a financial contribution to the ecosystem of British racing or an exchanger.
While we have increasingly determined by the Commission in the past few months, we will share these results with the government and hope that they will work with us to encourage the beders to stay on the legal market in view of this growing leak.
The study is a further memory of why it is essential that gambling regulations are both balanced and proportional.
