Haydon Simcock of Stoke-on-Trent was arrested by Staffordshire police in September following an investigation by the UK’s Gambling Commission.

The 39-year-old was charged with providing gambling facilities to consumers across the UK without a licence between 8 October 2023 and 11 September last year. Simcock was also charged with advertising betting offers between 26 May 2023 and 1 March 2024.

The UK regulator said it led the investigation into Simcock and worked with the Staffordshire police department on the case. Simcock will appear before Birmingham Magistrates’ Court on 24 March.

Racing Post interview

In February 2024, the Racing Post publication conducted an undercover interview with a Haydon Simcock who claimed to be working for an illegal horse racing bookmaker in the UK. “The Post Bookmakers” took players’ bets via WhatsApp.

He told the Racing Post that he acted as commercial manager for the bookmaker, which was confirmed by the Commission to be an unlicensed operator. Simcock said the firm had up to 10 employees and 1,300 customers at the time of the interview.

Simcock told the publication many of his customers could no longer bet with regulated operators and many pointed to affordability checks and account restrictions as reasons they engaged with the illegal operator.

Gambling Commission actions

The Gambling Commission has initiated a crackdown on illegal operators in the UK as CEO Andrew Rhodes has said they offer no protection for players.

“The illegal market is bad from a human point of view,” Rhodes said in a blog post last year.

“We are particularly vigilant and active in our work to disrupt this market and, through collaboration with others, have made good progress in frustrating illegal online operators,” he added.

In January, Rhodes set out details on how the Commission is addressing illegal gambling in the UK, particularly online.

He said in the financial year to date, the regulator has issued over 770 cease-and-desist and disruption notices. This includes 262 cease-and-desists to operators and 205 to advertisers.

The Commission is working on its first report analysing black market activity in the UK. The first iteration is expected to be published in the summer and will combine web traffic data collected from unlicensed sites with an average player spend amount.

This has been calculated by collecting player spend data across 139,152 online gambling accounts from seven leading operators in the UK.