The number of illegal sports streaming in the UK has “exploded,” says The Guardian, over the past three years. A new report has found that the number of sports events being illegally streamed has more than doubled to 3.6 billion.
The Campaign for Fairer Gambling (CFG), in its national 2024-25 report, has also found a relationship between illegal sports streaming and unlicensed gambling. 89% of illegal streams in the UK feature ads for black-market bookies. Illegal betting has also increased in recent years. Unlicensed operators earned £379 million in the first half of last year, accounting for 9% of the UK’s £8.2 billion online marketplace, up from 2% in 2022.
The number of illegal sports streaming has risen from 1.8 billion in 2022 to 3.6 billion in 2025, the report, produced by online marketplace intelligence platform Yield Sec. Its report on the American market for 2024 found 4.2 billion streams, in the much larger country.
“Unlicensed gambling is by far the largest and most prevalent ‘media partner’ to the criminal business of illegal streaming of sports events,” said Ismail Vali, founder of Yield Sec. “For the first time, illegal gambling’s focus upon two core audiences in Great Britain – the underage and self-excluded gamblers on the GamStop scheme, looks set to shift into mainstream audiences via the gateway of illegal streaming of sports events.
“When illegal gambling becomes the commercial engine behind the theft of premium sports content, the explanation is clear: it is because crime can make money from it. What does crime do with all of the money it takes by stealing from sports rights holders? It makes more crime.”
In the budget last autumn, chancellor Rachel Reeves announced £26 million in funding for the Gambling Commission to tackle the black market. But the CFG says that the regulator underestimates the scale of the issue, with ongoing concerns in the industry that tax changes due in April, increasing gaming duty from 21% to 40%, could lead to a growth in unlicensed bookmakers.
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