UKGC reports 3,038,969 URLs removed from British search results
Enforcement & compliance2 min read
The UKGC said its action against illegal gambling sites removed 3,038,969 URLs from search engines between April and September 2026. It sent 1,005 demands to operators and advertisers and reported 7,824,932 URLs to search engines, while noting that URL removals do not necessarily take websites offline.
Gardner said the crackdown on illegal gambling sites was significantly scaled up in the first six months of the current financial year. Acting chief executive Sarah Gardner disclosed the figures to British gambling industry executives at a meeting.
The regulator sent 1,005 demands to operators and advertisers in April to September 2026, compared with 741 in the full 2025/2026 financial year. It reported 7,824,932 URLs to search engines in the first half of the current financial year, compared with 397,527 in the previous full year. The corresponding numbers removed from search results were 3,038,969 and 266,667. UKGC enforcement figures show that 7,677,211 illegal online casino URLs were reported from July to September, compared with 147,721 in the preceding three months.
The regulator reported 2,201 websites with a request for their removal from search results, compared with 1,068 in the full 2025/2026 financial year. Gardner said 1,668 websites were disrupted or taken down, compared with 1,134 a year earlier. Her speech did not break down how many went offline, disappeared only from search results or were blocked for British visitors, or make clear whether all were unique websites.
A URL refers to an individual page, and a website can contain thousands or millions of URLs. Removing a URL from a search engine does not necessarily take the page or gambling site offline. The site may remain accessible directly, through another URL or from another country. Website counts do not equal operator counts, as one operator can use multiple domains and return under a new domain name after a block.
The UKGC distinguishes search engine removals from domain administrator blocks, hosting suspensions and geo-blocking. Geo-blocking restricts access from Britain without removing the website, and the regulator has acknowledged that players can sometimes bypass such blocks using a VPN.
The UKGC's November 2026 illegal gambling dashboard recorded 311 distinct websites subject to disruption action in the second quarter. Estimated traffic fell after intervention for 77% of the websites examined. That traffic measure differs from the numbers of URLs reported or removed and the website counts Gardner cited in her speech.