As the review by the UK Treasury into the £1.7 billion UK online gambling market draws to an end next week, operators are claiming that a secondary licensing fee will see UK gamblers using illegal gambling sites.

William Hill which has a 10% share of the UK gambling market commissioned its own studies carried out by the business services provider Deloittes. The results released this week show that a secondary taxation at the point of consumption could see 40% of punters using non-licensed operators as reputable companies struggle to compete. Industry experts already expect the UK Treasury to levy a 15% tax on online gambling companies next year and Derloittes has estimated that at such a level two-fifths of legitimate operators could turn their banks on the UK gaming industry which would see more British online players heading for non-regulated sites and taking their chances with UK enforcement policies.

A spokesman for William Hill commented: "The question for the Government is, should it introduce policy which distorts markets?"

With William Hill standing to lose out financially with the inevitable changes coming to UK legislation the survey results come as no surprise. The company are clearly not going to want to shout about the benefits of regulating the online industry. Currently online players have no support from the UK Gambling Commission which has no say on how offshore companies operate. There is also very little emphasise on problem gambling which is a significantly bigger problem in online gaming than it is in land based regulated gambling establishments. If the UK has an effective policy for regulating online gambling operators that choose to market to UK players operators could see lower levels of competition and therefore revenues increase which may actually offset the tax burden.