A comprehensive new report into the state of international illegal betting has found a marked increase in punters using black market bookmakers, which are outnumbering licensed and regulated online operators by a ratio of nearly two to one.

The State of Illegal Betting study, produced by the Asian Racing Federation (ARF) assessing global betting markets, highlighted how the proliferation of unlicensed or unregulated firms presented “major threats to the integrity of racing and other sports, the growth of transnational organised crime, and gambling harm to customers”.

The release of the 94-page document comes as punters, the betting industry and racing in Britain await the publication of the government’s white paper into the review of the 2005 Gambling Act.