Strengthening Cross-Border Cooperation
This year we have had the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland (GRAI) and the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) signing a formal Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen bilateral cooperation on gambling oversight.
The deal was signed in Dublin back in April this year, and marked the first international partnership for what was the newly established GRAI which only kicked into the gear the month before.
Speaking about it at the time, Anne Marie Caulfield, GRAI CEO, stated: “This Memorandum of Understand with the Gambling Commission is an important step in formalising the working relationship between the two regulators and I would like to thank Andrew Rhodes, and a number of his colleagues across the various areas of the Commission for their advice and support over the past number of months.
“Ireland and the UK share many of the same operators and gambling practices, so putting this agreement in place will enhance our ability to share information and discharge our respective regulatory responsibilities effectively.
“Open dialogue and close cooperation between both jurisdictions is paramount and I greatly look forward to continuing this close cooperation for the years to come.”
And a partnership like that is what is needed when it comes to keeping people safe online. A quick look at the betting sites across Ireland on Scs.ie shows that there are a huge amount of Irish online bookmakers and this partnership will help ensure that unlicensed bookmakers are taken down.
Tackling the Rise of Illegal Operators
This week alone, the Director of Enforcement and Intelligence at the Gambling Commission in the UK, John Pierce, highlighted some of the issues regulatory authorities were having.
In a blog on the commission website he explained: “Unlicensed operators are actively targeting British consumers by manipulating search engine results, exploiting social media platforms, and integrating with payment systems. Many imitate legitimate businesses and take advantage of regulatory gaps across jurisdictions.
“This activity poses serious risks in Great Britain. It undermines consumer protection, distorts fair competition, bypasses regulatory standards, impacts tax revenue, and in some cases, is linked to organised criminal networks. Tackling it will require sustained, collaborative action and a clear strategic focus.”
He added: “Illegal gambling is not a static threat—it is adaptive, opportunistic, and increasingly embedded in digital ecosystems on the international stage.
“Through targeted disruption, strategic partnerships, and continued investment in capability, we are building a resilient and effective framework to protect consumers and uphold the integrity of the regulated sector. We are making progress—and we are committed to going further.”
And you can see why action is needed.
The Betting and Gaming Council estimates that £2.7bn is staked annually on the online black market in the UK, equivalent to 2.1% of the amount staked with regulated operators.
Building a Safer Future for Online Gambling
To help fight that, new partnerships like the one signed in April are needed.
That is because they can help to promote a safe gambling environment, focusing on key areas of cooperation, including information exchange, creation of working groups on best practices and conducting joint discussions and strategic planning.
By working together they can also establish a joint database that both authoritative bodies can access. Every time a site has been proven to be caught operating illegally the platform must immediately be shut down but also this information should be noted on the database. Ongoing investigations could also be shared.
If so, it could help both the GRAI and the Gambling Commission to significantly improve the time in which it takes for these casinos to be shut down.
It could also help both when it comes to take down requests to Google, something John Pierce also alluded to in his blog.
He said: “To reduce visibility of illegal operators, we have developed referral pathways with major search platforms; Google, Bing, and Yahoo which together account for around 97 per cent of the Internet Search Engine (ISE) market in Great Britain. These partnerships enable automatic delisting of illegal content, intelligence sharing, and early disruption. While sites often reappear, this remains a valuable tactic.
“We have also been expanding our efforts to include social media platforms like Meta, TikTok, X, and YouTube to tackle illegal advertising. Looking ahead, strengthening our understanding of advertising channels, financial flows and collaborating more closely with the financial sector will be key. Exploring options to develop joint initiatives with other regulators internationally is also taking place to develop a co-ordinated international response.”
It is also something that Gambling Commission chief executive Andrew Rhodes spoke about at the International Association of Gaming Regulators (IAGR) Conference on 20 October 2025.
He said: “We have set up a dedicated team about three and a half years ago to specifically focus on this area. Why did we? There has to be a reason to want to be in the legitimate market.
“And part of that reason has to be that we make sure there are penalties and disincentives for being in the illegal market, but also one of our obligations under the Gambling Act, which created us as an organisation, is we are here to protect children and the vulnerable from being exploited by gambling. There is nothing more exploitative than the illegal market.”
He added: “But we can measure the impact we’ve had and we’re tracking over 1000 illegal operators as we try to shut them down: what effect we’re having on their traffic. And what we can see is if we can remove things from search results, we make it harder to find, so we slow them down.”
So hitting sites hard at the source of their customer drive, be it Google or Facebook, is already being fought by both the GRAI and the Gambling Commission.
By adding in new international partnerships between the two, it should get ever harder for illegal sites to make an impact both in the UK and in Ireland — which can only be good news for the customer and staying safe when gambling online.
