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An Acorn Domains review of a recently extracted UK Gambling Commission domain-name dataset shows a market still heavily concentrated around .com and the UK namespace.
The report was inspired by this thread https://www.acorndomains.co.uk/thre...rands-trust-casino-or-stay-with-co-uk.191880/ by @NiceNICDomainServer . Thank you for interesting morning thoughts...
The extract contains 2,242 domain-name records linked to 624 UK Gambling Commission account numbers. After normalising full URLs and paths into hostnames, the dataset contains 2,051 unique hostnames.
For this report, .co.uk, .org.uk and .gov.uk have been counted separately, rather than being merged into .uk. This gives a more useful view for the UK domain market.
At a glance
Status breakdown
Top domain suffixes in the register
The headline number: .com still dominates
The clear leader is .com, with 1,217 records. That represents 54.28% of all domain-name records in the dataset.
This is not surprising. Many gambling operators, software providers, betting brands and international groups continue to use .com as their primary commercial namespace. It remains the default extension for global-facing gambling brands, especially where the operator wants to avoid being seen as UK-only.
However, the UK namespace is also very strong.
When .co.uk, .org.uk, .uk and .gov.uk are combined, they account for 819 records, or 36.53% of the full dataset.
For a UK-facing regulated sector, that is a significant number.
.co.uk remains the main UK commercial choice
The strongest UK extension in the dataset is .co.uk, with 576 records.
That makes .co.uk the second most used suffix overall, behind only .com.
The .co.uk figure is especially interesting because gambling is one of the most commercially competitive online sectors. Where businesses are targeting UK users, .co.uk continues to carry trust, familiarity and local relevance.
In total:
Together, these UK namespace entries represent more than one third of the register’s domain-name records.
.org.uk is unusually strong because of lotteries and charities
The third largest suffix is .org.uk, with 197 records.
This reflects the number of charity lotteries, fundraising raffles, society lotteries and non-commercial gambling-related activities in the UK Gambling Commission register.
Many of these organisations are charities or public-benefit bodies, where .org.uk remains a natural fit. This makes the gambling register different from a purely commercial betting or casino dataset.
The .org.uk count is also much higher than .org, which has 64 records.
Active domains tell an even more UK-focused story
Looking only at active records, the picture changes.
Among active records, .com still leads individually, but the UK namespace becomes almost as large as .com.
Active UK namespace records are made up of:
This suggests that although .com dominates the historic and total dataset, active gambling-related domain usage in the UK register has a very strong UK-domain footprint.
Top active suffixes
New gambling extensions remain niche
Despite the availability of gambling-specific new gTLDs, their use remains relatively limited in this dataset.
The strongest gambling-related new extension is .bet, with 34 records. The .casino extension appears 7 times.
Other newer or specialist extensions appearing in the extract include .app, .game, .games, .bingo, .win, .online, .club, .fun and .vip.
The numbers show that these extensions exist in the sector, but they have not displaced .com, .co.uk or .org.uk.
For example:
The data suggests that operators still strongly prefer established extensions when registering domains for regulated gambling activity.
The long tail of extensions
Outside the leading suffixes, the dataset contains a long tail of smaller extensions.
These include:
Single-record suffixes include .info, .ltd, .biz, .us, .com.br, .online, .mx, .xyz, .fun, .co.nz, .eu, .cafe, .club, .games and .co.za.
There were also two entries that did not appear to be valid domain names: megafoorball and thelittlelottery.
Concentration is very high
The top three suffixes are:
Together, these account for 1,990 records out of 2,242.
That means the top three suffixes represent 88.76% of all domain-name records in the dataset.
The top five suffixes, .com, .co.uk, .org.uk, .org and .uk, account for 93.18% of all records.
This is a highly concentrated domain landscape. For all the variety in modern TLD choice, the regulated gambling register is still overwhelmingly built around a small number of trusted extensions.
What this means for domain investors
For UK domain investors, the findings are useful.
The gambling sector is one of the most competitive online industries, but the register shows that trusted, familiar extensions remain the dominant choice.
The data supports several practical observations:
For buyers and sellers of UK domains, the .co.uk result is particularly important. The extension remains deeply embedded in a regulated, trust-sensitive, high-value online sector.
Important note on the data
The dataset analysed here was an extracted CSV of domain-name records associated with UK Gambling Commission account numbers.
Some entries in the register are full URLs rather than bare domains. For this report, URLs were normalised to their hostnames before calculating suffix statistics. For example, a URL containing a path was counted according to its hostname’s suffix.
The figures should therefore be read as a statistical view of the extracted register data, not as a live real-time audit. The UK Gambling Commission register may change as businesses add, remove, surrender or update domain names.
Conclusion
The UK Gambling Commission domain-name dataset shows a market where .com leads overall, but the UK namespace remains extremely important.
Across all records, .com accounts for just over half of the dataset. But when looking only at active records, the combined UK namespace is larger than .com.
For Acorn Domains members, the message is simple: in a serious UK-facing regulated sector, .co.uk and .org.uk are still very much in use.
Newer gambling extensions may attract attention, but the numbers show that established extensions continue to carry the greatest weight.
Infographics?
Why not. These days LLM is so helpful and it would be a shame not including nice infographics (thank you: ChatGPT):
Happy Friday!!
Helmuts
p.s. find attached zip file of the data I used for this
The report was inspired by this thread https://www.acorndomains.co.uk/thre...rands-trust-casino-or-stay-with-co-uk.191880/ by @NiceNICDomainServer . Thank you for interesting morning thoughts...The extract contains 2,242 domain-name records linked to 624 UK Gambling Commission account numbers. After normalising full URLs and paths into hostnames, the dataset contains 2,051 unique hostnames.
For this report, .co.uk, .org.uk and .gov.uk have been counted separately, rather than being merged into .uk. This gives a more useful view for the UK domain market.
At a glance
- Total domain-name records analysed: 2,242
- Unique UK Gambling Commission account numbers represented: 624
- Unique raw domain values: 2,133
- Unique normalised hostnames after removing www: 2,051
- Valid TLD or suffix groups found: 39
- Invalid or no-dot entries found: 2
Status breakdown
- Active: 1,058 records, 47.19%
- Inactive: 799 records, 35.64%
- White Label: 385 records, 17.17%
Top domain suffixes in the register
- .com: 1,217 records, 54.28%
- .co.uk: 576 records, 25.69%
- .org.uk: 197 records, 8.79%
- .org: 64 records, 2.85%
- .uk: 35 records, 1.56%
- .net: 34 records, 1.52%
- .bet: 34 records, 1.52%
- .gov.uk: 11 records, 0.49%
- .app: 8 records, 0.36%
- .co: 8 records, 0.36%
- .io: 7 records, 0.31%
- .casino: 7 records, 0.31%
The headline number: .com still dominates
The clear leader is .com, with 1,217 records. That represents 54.28% of all domain-name records in the dataset.
This is not surprising. Many gambling operators, software providers, betting brands and international groups continue to use .com as their primary commercial namespace. It remains the default extension for global-facing gambling brands, especially where the operator wants to avoid being seen as UK-only.
However, the UK namespace is also very strong.
When .co.uk, .org.uk, .uk and .gov.uk are combined, they account for 819 records, or 36.53% of the full dataset.
For a UK-facing regulated sector, that is a significant number.
.co.uk remains the main UK commercial choice
The strongest UK extension in the dataset is .co.uk, with 576 records.
That makes .co.uk the second most used suffix overall, behind only .com.
The .co.uk figure is especially interesting because gambling is one of the most commercially competitive online sectors. Where businesses are targeting UK users, .co.uk continues to carry trust, familiarity and local relevance.
In total:
- .co.uk: 576 records
- .org.uk: 197 records
- .uk: 35 records
- .gov.uk: 11 records
Together, these UK namespace entries represent more than one third of the register’s domain-name records.
.org.uk is unusually strong because of lotteries and charities
The third largest suffix is .org.uk, with 197 records.
This reflects the number of charity lotteries, fundraising raffles, society lotteries and non-commercial gambling-related activities in the UK Gambling Commission register.
Many of these organisations are charities or public-benefit bodies, where .org.uk remains a natural fit. This makes the gambling register different from a purely commercial betting or casino dataset.
The .org.uk count is also much higher than .org, which has 64 records.
Active domains tell an even more UK-focused story
Looking only at active records, the picture changes.
Among active records, .com still leads individually, but the UK namespace becomes almost as large as .com.
- .com active records: 444, or 41.97% of active records
- Combined UK namespace active records: 501, or 47.35% of active records
Active UK namespace records are made up of:
- .co.uk: 304 active records
- .org.uk: 171 active records
- .uk: 16 active records
- .gov.uk: 10 active records
This suggests that although .com dominates the historic and total dataset, active gambling-related domain usage in the UK register has a very strong UK-domain footprint.
Top active suffixes
- .com: 444 active records
- .co.uk: 304 active records
- .org.uk: 171 active records
- .org: 57 active records
- .uk: 16 active records
- .net: 13 active records
- .bet: 12 active records
- .gov.uk: 10 active records
New gambling extensions remain niche
Despite the availability of gambling-specific new gTLDs, their use remains relatively limited in this dataset.
The strongest gambling-related new extension is .bet, with 34 records. The .casino extension appears 7 times.
Other newer or specialist extensions appearing in the extract include .app, .game, .games, .bingo, .win, .online, .club, .fun and .vip.
The numbers show that these extensions exist in the sector, but they have not displaced .com, .co.uk or .org.uk.
For example:
- .bet: 34 records
- .casino: 7 records
- .app: 8 records
- .game: 2 records
- .bingo: 2 records
- .games: 1 record
The data suggests that operators still strongly prefer established extensions when registering domains for regulated gambling activity.
The long tail of extensions
Outside the leading suffixes, the dataset contains a long tail of smaller extensions.
These include:
- .mobi: 4 records
- .gg: 3 records
- .de: 3 records
- .cymru: 2 records
- .tv: 2 records
- .ie: 2 records
- .uk.com: 2 records
- .me: 2 records
- .win: 2 records
Single-record suffixes include .info, .ltd, .biz, .us, .com.br, .online, .mx, .xyz, .fun, .co.nz, .eu, .cafe, .club, .games and .co.za.
There were also two entries that did not appear to be valid domain names: megafoorball and thelittlelottery.
Concentration is very high
The top three suffixes are:
- .com
- .co.uk
- .org.uk
Together, these account for 1,990 records out of 2,242.
That means the top three suffixes represent 88.76% of all domain-name records in the dataset.
The top five suffixes, .com, .co.uk, .org.uk, .org and .uk, account for 93.18% of all records.
This is a highly concentrated domain landscape. For all the variety in modern TLD choice, the regulated gambling register is still overwhelmingly built around a small number of trusted extensions.
What this means for domain investors
For UK domain investors, the findings are useful.
The gambling sector is one of the most competitive online industries, but the register shows that trusted, familiar extensions remain the dominant choice.
The data supports several practical observations:
- .com remains the strongest global-facing option for gambling brands.
- .co.uk remains highly relevant for UK-facing commercial gambling activity.
- .org.uk has meaningful use in charity lotteries, raffles and society lottery activity.
- .uk is present, but still far behind .co.uk in this dataset.
- New gambling-specific extensions such as .bet and .casino are used, but remain niche.
For buyers and sellers of UK domains, the .co.uk result is particularly important. The extension remains deeply embedded in a regulated, trust-sensitive, high-value online sector.
Important note on the data
The dataset analysed here was an extracted CSV of domain-name records associated with UK Gambling Commission account numbers.
Some entries in the register are full URLs rather than bare domains. For this report, URLs were normalised to their hostnames before calculating suffix statistics. For example, a URL containing a path was counted according to its hostname’s suffix.
The figures should therefore be read as a statistical view of the extracted register data, not as a live real-time audit. The UK Gambling Commission register may change as businesses add, remove, surrender or update domain names.
Conclusion
The UK Gambling Commission domain-name dataset shows a market where .com leads overall, but the UK namespace remains extremely important.
Across all records, .com accounts for just over half of the dataset. But when looking only at active records, the combined UK namespace is larger than .com.
For Acorn Domains members, the message is simple: in a serious UK-facing regulated sector, .co.uk and .org.uk are still very much in use.
Newer gambling extensions may attract attention, but the numbers show that established extensions continue to carry the greatest weight.
Infographics?
Why not. These days LLM is so helpful and it would be a shame not including nice infographics (thank you: ChatGPT):
Happy Friday!!
Helmuts
p.s. find attached zip file of the data I used for this
H
