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The UK’s Gambling Commission has unveiled a new tool to identify illegal gambling websites, which will be led by the Data Innovation Hub.
Executive Director for Policy and Research, Tim Miller, is the senior responsible owner for the project, which will help identify illegal gambling websites which may cause harm to users.
The tool identifies illegal gambling websites through an automated Google search of a list of relevant search terms. A web intelligence platform called Similarweb then provides web traffic estimates, which therefore provides various insights into online illegal gambling activity.
This is a step forward from the previous method. Before this new tool, illegal gambling websites were identified by desktop research, with web traffic estimates being obtained one by one manually.
The new identification tool utilises a Google search API to obtain results for a list of search terms designed using findings from the Gambling Commission’s consumer research into online illegal gambling motivations.
An illegal gambling website identification tool has several benefits
Compared to the old method of identifying illegal gambling websites, the newly developed tool has several benefits which could make things much easier for the Gambling Commission in the future.
This could certainly provide a far greater understanding of the trends in illegal gambling over the next few years.
Furthermore, this tool could enable the targeting of illegal online gambling by making illegal gambling websites that generate the most traffic a priority, focusing on the websites which are causing the most harm.
Previously, data collection was done manually. Now, the automation of collecting data will allow more time and resources to be spent on things such as disruption, which could pay dividends over time.
Despite this, there are several risks, with one being that a legal, licensed website could be flagged as illegal.
Elsewhere, the tool could even miss flagging up illegal gambling websites. Over time, however, this new resource will prove to be a success in fighting against illegal gambling websites.
