TLDR A Swansea University study found apparent privacy law breaches on 86% of 624 UK gambling sites checked. About two out of three sites collected user data before visitors gave consent. Some sites, including Hollywood Bets and Admiral Casino, offered no way to turn off tracking. Ladbrokes and William Hill were flagged for gathering data ahead of a consent choice. The UK’s privacy regulator has pushed for cookie compliance, but gambling sites lagged far behind other websites.
Researchers at Swansea University looked at 624 licensed gambling and betting websites operating in the UK. They wanted to see whether the sites followed data protection rules around tracking cookies.
The results showed problems on most sites checked. Researchers found signs of a data protection breach on 86% of the websites.
Consent Given Too Late or Not at All
In many cases, the issue started before users made any choice. About 24% of sites gave visitors no option to turn off tracking software at all.
Hollywood Bets, which sponsors Brentford FC, was one of the sites named in that group. Admiral Casino was also on the list.
A smaller number of sites skipped the consent step entirely. Around 2% offered no consent option whatsoever, including Dafabet, a sponsor of Celtic FC.
Other sites gave users a choice but designed it to favor tracking. Researchers said 60% of sites visually pushed users toward the option that shared more data.
Close to 30% of sites had the less private choice already selected by default. Nearly half of the sites, 47%, buried the option to reject tracking behind an extra click.
These setups are often called dark patterns. They are not automatically against the law, but they raise questions when paired with the high rate of apparent violations found in the study.
Data