The UK Gambling Commission referred 7.7 million illegal gambling URLs to search engines between July and September 2026. The regulator’s enforcement data shows that 3,019,291 URLs were removed during the period and 1,835 websites were referred for delisting.
Enforcement activity is scaling up
The quarterly total was sharply higher than the 147,721 URLs referred between April and June. Across the first six months of the 2026–27 financial year, the Commission reported 7,824,932 URLs and said 3,038,969 had been removed. It also issued 1,005 cease-and-desist notices to advertisers and operators between April and September.
Implications for affiliates and publishers
The figures underline the risk of carrying unlicensed gambling promotions, affiliate links or other acquisition content aimed at Great Britain. Publishers should strengthen operator licence checks, review redirect and mirror-domain practices, and retain evidence of the markets each campaign targets. URL referrals and removals are enforcement actions; they should not be read as a count of unique operators or customers.