Ian Angus, the Gambling Commission’s Director of Policy, has warned the lottery sector that, while growth is accelerating, so is regulatory scrutiny.
Speaking to lottery operators and charity fundraising groups at the Gambling Commission’s 2026 Lotteries Council Annual Conference, Angus revealed that society lotteries generated more than £1bn in gross gambling yield during the 2024/25 period for the second consecutive year, with £484.6m raised for good causes – a 4.8% increase year-on-year.
Participation in society lotteries also continued to rise, with an estimated nine million adults playing between July and October 2025, making them the second most popular form of gambling product in Great Britain behind only the National Lottery.
While describing the sector as a major contributor to charities and local communities, Angus stressed that lotteries remain gambling products and therefore require “appropriate regulation to keep it safe, fair and crime free”.
“That’s where we at the Gambling Commission come in,” he continued.
“We want to work with you to make sure you can run your lotteries safely and keep on raising money for your good causes and maintain the reputation of your charities and community organisations.”
Gambling Commission looking to put out illegal fires
The Commission also used the event to underline its continued crackdown on illegal gambling activity.
Angus revealed that, during 2025, the Commission secured the removal of 356 illegal lottery operations from social media platforms – almost double the number disrupted in 2024 (190).
Across the wider market, the Commission issued 741 cease-and-desist notices last year, referred more than 397,000 URLs to search engines for removal, and disrupted over 1,100 illegal gambling websites.
The regulator’s enforcement capabilities are expected to intensify further following new UK Treasury funding worth £26m over three years for Baroness Twycross’ Illegal Gambling Taskforce.
Despite the multi-million-pound funding, regulators and commissioners will have a challenging task on their hands due to the proliferation of black market activity, which has been more prevalent than ever across social media in recent months.
The Commission has also outlined its plans to scale up enforcement operations across the UK, including the automation of disruption tools, publication of new illegal-market data metrics, and working with government partners on Britain’s first national illegal gambling risk assessment.
He stated: “All this whilst continuing to increase the scale and impact of our enforcement and disruption activities building on our existing partnership working with government, law enforcement and other stakeholders.
“But as I and others from the Commission have said, there is only so much we can do alone. We need and want to continue to work with others who have a role to play in keeping illegal gambling as small a part of the market as possible and that includes lotteries.
“So please do keep on sending in any intelligence you find or receive. It really does make a difference.”
Alongside enforcement, the Director of Policy also highlighted the regulator’s commitment to “compliance at the earliest opportunity through proactive communication and access to technical expertise”.
Angus encouraged operators to work collaboratively with the Commission and make use of its recently launched Licence Support service, which has been designed to provide faster guidance and operational assistance to licensees.
He concluded: “There is, as always, plenty for us all to do over the next 12 months. Society lotteries do such amazing work in raising so much money for charities and communities up and down the country.
“For the sake of the good causes you support and the communities who trust in you, it is absolutely vital that society lotteries keep on doing that good work, in full compliance with our rules. And we want to help you to do just that.”