13% of young people think peers used VPNs to reach online gambling, UK study estimates

A UK regulator-backed study estimated that around 13% of young people believed peers had used a virtual private network to access websites or apps where money or coins could be bet on games or sports. The number is striking, but its grammar is the safeguard.

Respondents were not counted as personally using a VPN to gamble. The researchers used an indirect list experiment designed for sensitive behaviour and asked about what people their age may have done. The result measures perceived peer prevalence, not verified individual activity.

Among 1,020 participants aged 11 to 17, 76% said they were aware of VPNs. Only 36% said they understood how the technology works. Awareness increased with age, from 61% among 11- to 12-year-olds to 89% among 16- to 17-year-olds.

Friends were the most commonly reported awareness source at 42%, followed by family at 37% and content on YouTube or TikTok at 36%. The pattern shows why access controls cannot be designed as if VPNs were an obscure tool known only to technical adults.

The peer-use estimate was 19% among 16- to 17-year-olds and 20% among those already aware of VPNs. It was 2% among 11- to 12-year-olds. These subgroup differences point toward age and familiarity as relevant factors, but the report treats them as indications rather than a national usage census.

A VPN can alter the location signal seen by a website. That does not automatically defeat identity checks, payment controls or every geolocation system. The research tests awareness and perceptions; it does not run technical penetration tests against gambling platforms.

Yonder conducted the online survey between 30 April and 5 May 2026 through a Children’s Omnibus panel. The methodology page says panel members self-select into survey participation and the sample is not random-probability. Self-reported understanding may also differ from actual technical knowledge.

The list experiment reduces pressure to admit a stigmatised behaviour, but it produces an indirect estimate. It cannot identify motivations, specific sites, success rates or whether the content involved legal or illegal services. Smaller subgroup comparisons also carry greater statistical uncertainty.

None of those caveats makes the result meaningless. They define the right use for it: an early warning that VPN-enabled gambling access is present in young people's perception of peer behaviour. The next step is better behavioural and technical evidence, not a headline claiming that one in eight British children has personally gambled through a VPN.

A responsible follow-up should separate three events that are often blended together: installing a VPN, attempting to reach gambling content and successfully opening or using a gambling account. Each stage can fail for different reasons. Device controls, app-store policies, identity verification, payment checks and operator monitoring may intervene even when a location signal changes.

The word gambling also needs precision. The survey prompt covered websites or apps where money or coins could be bet on games or sports. It did not publish a product-by-product breakdown covering sportsbooks, casinos, social games, skins or other virtual items. That absence prevents a confident claim about which part of the online ecosystem drives the perceived behaviour.

Finally, peer perception can matter even when it exceeds actual prevalence. Young people may be more willing to try a workaround if they believe many others already do it. That possibility is a research hypothesis, not a result established by this survey. Future work could compare perceived norms with anonymised behavioural data and controlled technical tests.