Illegal streaming and betting continues to surge in the UK, and two separate reports reveal why it has become “socially acceptable”.
Illegal streaming of sports in the UK increased to 3.6 billion last year as the country’s police force continue to threaten jail time for owners of Amazon firesticks that solicit piracy.
This data from the Campaign for Fairer Gambling report 2024-2025 revealed a link between illegal betting and piracy of sports.
Of the 3.6 billion illegal streams on sports, the report found 89% of pirated streams featured advertisements for black-market bookmakers.
Both illegal streaming and betting in the UK has surged since 2022. Illegal streams of sports in the country was 1.8 billion, while gambling’s black market operators have increased their market share of the UK’s £8.2bn industry, from 2% in 2022, to 9% three years later.
The report described this as a “symbiotic relationship” between illegal streaming and betting. Yield Sec, a technology intelligence platform, provided the data to the report and estimated illegal streaming in the UK is four times more prevalent than in the US on a per-capita basis.
Illegal streams are “the largest and most prevalent media partner” for blackmarket operators, said Ismail Vali, Founder of Yield Sec.
“When illegal gambling becomes the commercial engine behind the theft of premium sports content, the explanation is clear: crime can make money from it,” said Vali.
The UK’s ‘dodgy’ firestick issue
Illegal streaming of sports, in particular football, in the UK has become socially acceptable according to 58% of sports fans and 66% of professionals according to findings from the Sports Industry Report 2026.
Of those surveyed, 60% of fans and 90% of industry professionals attribute the rise of illegal streaming via Amazon firesticks to the costs of subscriptions to watch sports.
The report estimates that almost four million people used an illegal streaming source to watch live sport in the UK in 2023.
Within football, broadcast rights have become increasingly fragmented across multiple platforms. While Sky Sports and TNT Sports hold the domestic rights for the Premier League, next season, fans will also have to buy a subscription to Paramount+ to watch Champions League games after the company secured the rights from 2026 to 2031.
Perhaps more controversially, TNT Sports was awarded broadcast rights for the FA Cup last year. Football’s oldest cup competition had traditionally been free-to-air on BBC and ITV. While ITV retained sublicence rights to broadcast FA Cup games, fans (78%) and professionals (89%) believe more free-to-air coverage of football should be the responsibility of governing bodies.
