The Betting and Gaming Council has said up to £100m may have been staked with illegal operators across last weekend’s Aintree Festival, with as much as £40m of that wagered on the Grand National itself.
The UK industry body did not detail how the figures were calculated. The claim marks a steep escalation from the BGC’s own pre-race estimate last year, which projected £9.4m in illegal turnover on the Grand National, equivalent to around 3.8% of total expected wagering on the race.
The UK’s biggest betting event
The Grand National attracts billions of pounds in annual wagers and is consistently cited as the single most-wagered-on sporting event in the UK calendar. Entain data has previously shown the race generating around 700% more bets than the Cheltenham Gold Cup. The mix of regular bettors and casual, once-a-year participants is what the BGC argues makes the race a prime target for unlicensed sites that mimic regulated platforms.
The BGC’s 2024 research, referenced again in the latest statement, identified 1.5 million UK players spending £4.3bn a year on the illegal market, with one in five bettors aged 18 to 24 already using unregulated sites. Those figures have been a recurring point of dispute with the Gambling Commission, whose final report on the illegal online gambling market, published in November, estimated a smaller unregulated footprint than the industry body has claimed.
Financial risk checks back in focus
The BGC used the Aintree figures to renew its opposition to the Gambling Commission’s proposed financial risk checks, which would require operators to verify customer affordability at defined loss thresholds. The industry body said rising costs on licensed operators, combined with the prospect of intrusive checks, risk pushing players toward unregulated channels. The British Horseracing Authority has also opposed the proposals, citing concerns about their impact on racing’s betting economy.
“The Grand National is one of the biggest moments in the sporting calendar, enjoyed safely by millions. But the criminal harmful black market will also have tried to cash in, targeting punters with illegal betting that offers zero protections,” said Grainne Hurst, chief executive of the BGC.
“Rising costs and increasingly intrusive checks will only make it harder for legitimate operators to compete. The priority must be keeping punters in the regulated market, where safeguards are in place, rather than driving them towards dangerous illegal operators.”
Tax changes compound the debate
The warning lands as the UK industry absorbs confirmed tax increases announced in November’s Budget, with Remote Gaming Duty rising to 40% and sports betting duty moving to 25%. Major operators including Flutter and Entain have each quantified the expected impact on their UK businesses, and Evoke has warned that the combination of rising costs and black market competition could trigger job losses in the regulated sector.
Licensed operators in Britain are required to meet age verification, anti-money laundering, and safer gambling obligations. Unlicensed sites operating outside those rules offer none of those protections. The gap between industry estimates of the illegal market and the Gambling Commission’s own assessment has been central to the policy dispute over how quickly risk checks are introduced, and at what loss thresholds.
Enforcement as the industry’s top lobbying priority
The BGC has positioned enforcement against illegal operators as its central policy priority for 2026. At the organisation’s annual general meeting last month, Hurst described the black market as “the single biggest threat” facing the sector and set out a five-pillar strategy covering evidence-building, investigation of illegal networks, enforcement support, and public awareness.
The £100m figure attached to a single long weekend at Aintree is the largest number the BGC has published for one sporting event. It will form part of the industry’s continued lobbying on the final shape of the risk-check regime, alongside the wider argument over the 2025 Budget tax package and its expected impact on licensed operators.
The Gambling Commission has indicated that pilot data on financial risk checks will inform the next phase of implementation, with further guidance expected later in 2026. How regulators weigh the BGC’s figures against the Commission’s own channelisation estimates will shape how quickly, and how widely, the checks are rolled out.
Source: Betting and Gaming Council
