The UK Gambling Commission criticised Meta for deliberately ignoring illegal online casinos from advertising on Facebook and Instagram.
On January 19, 2026, at ICE Barcelona 2026, an international gaming and casino industry exhibition held in Barcelona, Spain, Tim Miller, executive director of the UK Gambling Commission, criticized Meta for turning a blind eye to illegal online casino sites that advertise on Facebook and Instagram.
ICE Barcelona 2026 - Tim Miller Speech
Meta Overlooks Ads From Illegal Gambling Sites, Says UK Watchdog - Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-19/meta-overlooks-ads-from-illegal-gambling-sites-says-uk-watchdog
In his speech, Miller explained that the illegal online gambling market is not simple, and that many users of illegal sites have already engaged in 'self-exclusion.' Self-exclusion is a measure to combat gambling addiction in which players themselves apply to gambling operators or system administrators to be banned from accessing gambling services.
The committee then stated that, as part of its efforts, from April 2025 to the end of December, it issued 592 suspension requests to advertisers and businesses, reported 327,964 URLs to search engines, of which 203,571 were removed, requested the de-indexing of 839 sites, and forced the suspension or blocking of 627 sites.
Miller also argued that 'illegal businesses pose a threat not only to consumers, but also to legitimate licensees and taxpayers, and that no party should have a foothold in both the legal and illegal markets.' Given the current situation in which suppliers, advertisers, affiliates, and technology companies provide services to legitimate businesses while also providing similar services to the illegal market, he called for incorporating illegal market countermeasures into procurement, contracting, and commercial transaction decision-making, conducting thorough due diligence on business partners, and clarifying the contractual disadvantages of engaging with illegal businesses, making it commercially 'unprofitable' to do so.
Miller pointed out that Facebook and Instagram are prone to displaying ads for illegal online casinos on their timelines, particularly those for sites that advertise themselves as 'not on GamStop,' a system that discourages users from participating in the UK's online gambling self-exclusion program.
While Meta explains that it 'does not tolerate ads on illegal sites and will remove them upon notification,' Miller pointed out that the premise of that statement, 'we cannot know until we are notified,' is wrong. For example, Meta has an ad library that allows users to search for current ads by keyword, so anyone can find relevant ads by searching for 'not on gam stop,' so he argued that Meta simply does not try to find such ads.
Furthermore, the committee's discussions with Meta have made little progress, and instead suggested that regulators use AI tools to monitor and report any illegal ads they find. Miller criticized the move, saying, 'There's no way that some of the world's largest tech companies can't prevent illegal ads using their own keyword techniques, and as a result, it appears they're continuing to receive advertising revenue from scammers and criminals until someone speaks up.'
According to Miller, the UK government has decided to provide an additional 26 million pounds (approximately 4.9 billion yen) over the next three years to combat illegal gambling in the November 2025 Budget. Additionally, the Crime and Policing Bill, currently being debated in the House of Lords, will grant the Commission the power to obtain orders to suspend IP addresses and domain names associated with illegal gambling. The problem of illegal gambling site advertisements is not unique to the UK; similar advertisements have been noted to be widespread in India, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, and other countries. Miller concluded his speech by emphasizing the need for governments, international regulators, and the entire industry to work together and use all available tools to tackle the criminal market.
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