If journalists can find the black market betting sites targeting Brits – and place bets while posing as a seven-year-old – why can’t the Gambling Commission hunt them down?

Unlicensed gambling platforms are operating in plain sight and targeting British players, according to the Daily Mail, with investigator Alex Wood stating “the Gambling Commission simply has to do more”.

Investigations by Wood, co-host of BBC Radio 4’s Scam Secrets and advisor to UK Government, revealed sites designed to look like innocent puzzle or adventure games, luring users onto unregulated casinos. Unlike regulated platforms, which restrict online slot stakes to £5 per spin, these illicit operators allow bets of up to £2,000. Data analyst Yield Sec estimates that black-market sites raked in £379m in just six months this year.

These websites can be accessed directly through mainstream app stores, with Wood demonstrating how easily safeguards can be bypassed.

“I was shocked by the scale of the illegal gambling market in the UK and there are big questions for the authorities,” said Wood. “I set up one account as ‘Bo Peep’, a seven-year-old, and ‘she’ is still being contacted by illegal sites reminding her that she has free spins… it beggars belief.”

These platforms are hardly hidden; they are promoted through pop-ups on family-friendly games, social media adverts, and even search engines. If journalists can uncover them with such ease, why can’t the regulator charged with policing the industry?

The Gambling Commission insists it has issued more than 2,000 disruption notices in 18 months and is set to gain enhanced powers under the Crime and Policing Bill. But until then, Britain’s betting watchdog appears a step behind while illegal operators thrive in full view.

And the situation is the same with illegal gaming machines being sold on Ebay and other outlets. These are in plain site, with many of the sellers using false Gambling Commission license numbers – and yet the illegal machines market thrives.

But the government wants to drive the regulated operators off the high street. This is the legitimate business that is paying the Levy, MGD, business rates, NICs, pays the GC licence, employs local people, supports the high street economy and operates under the most restrictive gambling regulation in the world outside of prohibition countries.

You listen to evangelicals like Dawn Butler and the backbench Labour MPs looking for an easy column inch, and you get a transfer of players to the illegal market where there are no regulations or restrictions.

That, Dawn Butler, is a fool’s paradise.