UKPSF - Locked Out Of Search

          Why we are publishing this BLOG and what is it all about

The UK Paintball Sports Federation (UKPSF) has been working with Paintball business owners across the UK to pull together data examining the impact of Google’s advertising restrictions on the UK paintball industry. 

This information has now been pulled together in a paper that we are now publishing in this blog to support our findings. 

It explores how legitimate Paintball businesses have been prevented from advertising their activities through one of the UK’s most important digital marketing channels, the effect this is having on operators, participation and the wider industry, and the potential relevance of the UK’s new digital markets regulatory framework.

The paper brings together the issues facing operators and sets out why the UKPSF believes the treatment of Paintball within digital advertising deserves greater scrutiny which is a question the UKPSF will be asking when we put our (Paintball’s) case to the Governments APPG (All Parties Parliamentary Group) committee for Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work.

UK PAINTBALL SPORTS FEDERATION

LOCKED OUT
OF SEARCH

The economic and operational impact of Google's paintball advertising restriction on the UK paintball industry

Evidence from 31 submissions collected by the UK Paintball Sports Federation

31 raw submissions

28 unique respondent contacts

25 yrs median time in business

£1.73m+ conservative sample revenue-loss floor

 

Publication status This is the final UKPSF evidence paper based on submissions received up to the dataset freeze of 2 October 2026. It is suitable for external circulation. National estimates for jobs, tax/VAT and foregone Google advertising spend are not published because the evidence collected does not support reliable monetary estimates for those measures.

UK Paintball Sports Federation (UKPSF) • Final Evidence Paper • October 2026

Contents

·         1. Paintball: the activity, its history and its wider value

·         2. The legal position in Great Britain

WHY THIS PAPER MATTERS
The evidence is not simply about whether one advertising campaign was approved. It concerns access by lawful SMEs to high-intent search advertising in a market where the CMA says Google handles more than 90% of UK general search queries. The purpose of this paper is to establish the facts, quantify what the current evidence can support, state the limits of the available evidence, and set out proportionate questions for Google and regulators. [15] [16]

·         3. Executive summary

·         4. The Google advertising policy position

·         5. Evidence base and methodology

·         6. Findings from the UKPSF evidence collection

·         7. The economic signal in the sample

·         8. The wider digital-market context

·         9. What the evidence supports - and its limitations

·         10. Proportionate routes to resolution

·         11. Conclusion

·         Appendix A. Methodology and technical notes

·         Appendix B. Evidence register and source framework

1. Paintball: the activity, its history and its wider value

A lawful outdoor activity sector - not a firearms retailer category Paintball is played as a supervised recreational and competitive activity. The businesses represented in this paper host families, birthday parties, schools, youth groups, corporate groups and adult social groups. The policy issue examined here concerns access to advertising for the activity as a service, not an argument for unrestricted advertising of weapons or uncontrolled equipment sales.

1.1 What paintball is

Paintball is a structured team activity in which participants use compressed-gas markers to propel paint-filled capsules, typically playing objective-based games such as capture-the-flag, elimination, scenario missions or tournament formats. Modern commercial play is normally delivered at managed venues with protective masks, safety briefings, marshals/referees and controlled playing areas. The activity combines physical movement, communication, tactical decision-making and teamwork.

The UKPSF describes paintball as a sport combining strategy, teamwork and physical activity, with recreational, woodsball, scenario and tournament formats. The Federation traces its own organisational roots to 1991 and states that it developed in part from the need to address legal and technical questions around compressed-gas equipment. [1]

1.2 A brief history

Modern organised paintball developed during the early 1980s. The earliest equipment evolved from devices originally used for marking trees and livestock; over time, purpose-built sporting equipment, dedicated venues and formal competition developed. Peer-reviewed literature describes paintball as an organised sport since the 1980s. [2]

In the UK, the sport matured into a network of recreational venues, specialist retailers, manufacturers, scenario events and tournament competition. The UKPSF records that its predecessor federation later adopted a specifically UK focus, and that the Federation became a limited company in 2013. [1]

1.3 Physical activity, wellbeing and social value

Paintball should not be presented as a public-health intervention in its own right, but there is credible evidence that it can contribute to physical activity and social participation. A small peer-reviewed study of boys playing outdoor paintball found that participants accumulated substantial moderate-intensity physical activity during play and concluded that paintball could meet criteria for health-promoting physical activity. The study was small and should not be generalised to every participant, but it provides direct evidence that the activity can be physically meaningful. [2]

A 2017 UKPSF-commissioned Leeds Beckett University survey of 300 competitive paintball players reported self-perceived improvements in exercise behaviour, physical and psychological wellbeing, social capital and personal relationships. Just over half of respondents reported that they had not participated in competitive sport during the previous three years. Because that work relied on retrospective self-report, it is best treated as supportive rather than causal evidence. [3]

The wider evidence base for sport and physical activity is much stronger. Sport England's latest social-value model estimated that community sport and physical activity generated £122.9 billion of social value in England in 2023/24, through individual wellbeing and wider savings to public services. That figure is not a valuation of paintball, but it demonstrates why access to outdoor and community physical activity has value beyond the ticket price of a single session. [4] [5]

Figure 1. Customer groups served by unique respondent contacts. Source: UKPSF evidence form, 2026. Multiple selections permitted.

The UKPSF respondent data also shows the breadth of the customer base: 27 of 28 respondents selected birthday parties, 22 families, 21 schools, 19 youth groups and 20 corporate groups. This matters because the economic effect is not confined to a niche competitive community; it reaches businesses serving family, youth, school and corporate recreation.

2. The legal position in Great Britain

Legal framing used in this paper This section addresses the legal position in Great Britain. Current Home Office and Scottish Government guidance distinguishes ordinary recreational paintball markers, when used normally in adventure games, from conventional firearms activity. This paper therefore treats lawful recreational paintball services separately from firearms commerce while recognising that non-standard equipment or use can alter the legal position.

2.1 Great Britain: Home Office firearms guidance

The Home Office Guide on Firearms Licensing Law was most recently updated on 18 September 2026. The Home Office states that the guide is a consolidated explanation of firearms licensing law rather than a definitive statement of the law, and that police forces should seek to comply with its advice unless the circumstances justify departure. [6] Paragraph 2.48 explains the treatment of compressed-carbon-dioxide equipment and the relevant air-weapon thresholds. Crucially for recreational paintball, paragraph 2.49 states that the majority, though not all, CO₂-powered guns discharging paint pellets for adventure games are unlikely to cause serious injury and were not designed as weapons; the guidance says they "should not be considered to be firearms". It separately warns that designs capable of firing other projectiles or marketed for self-defence may fall within the Firearms Act 1968. [6]

That distinction is central to this paper. The UKPSF is not arguing that every device described colloquially as a paintball gun is outside firearms law in every circumstance. It is arguing that ordinary recreational paintball equipment and lawful commercial paintball activity should not automatically be equated with conventional firearms activity.

KEY LEGAL POINT  Current official guidance in England, Wales and Scotland does not support treating ordinary recreational paintball, in proper and normal use, as automatically equivalent to conventional firearms activity.

2.2 Scotland

Scotland has a separate air-weapon licensing regime. Scottish Government guidance expressly addresses paintball and states that paintball guns used normally in adventure games are not considered firearms and therefore do not fall within the Scottish air-weapons licensing regime; it also cautions that non-standard use or ammunition may change that position. [7]

KEY LEGAL FACT - GREAT BRITAIN Current Home Office guidance says that the majority of CO2-powered guns used to discharge paint pellets in adventure games were not designed as weapons and "should not be considered to be firearms". The same guidance also makes clear that particular designs, projectiles or self-defence use can change the legal analysis. [6]

2.3 Great Britain position at a glance

Jurisdiction	Official position relevant to recreational paintball	Practical point for this paper
England & Wales	Home Office guidance says the majority of normal CO2 paintball markers used in adventure games should not be considered firearms, subject to design, projectile and use.	Ordinary recreational paintball should not automatically be equated with conventional firearms commerce.
Scotland	Scottish Government guidance says paintball guns used normally in adventure games are not considered firearms and do not fall within the air-weapon licensing regime; non-standard use can change this.	The normal recreational activity is specifically distinguished from regulated firearms use.

Sources: Home Office firearms licensing guidance [6]; Scottish Government air-weapon guidance [7].

2.4 What the legal position means for this evidence paper

For England, Wales and Scotland, current official guidance specifically distinguishes ordinary recreational paintball markers in normal use from conventional firearms activity. This supports a clear distinction between lawful recreational paintball services and the sale or misuse of firearms or weapons.

Why this matters to the Google policy question Google is entitled to operate safety policies that are stricter than criminal law. The legal position does not itself prove that Google’s advertising rule is unlawful. It does, however, challenge any simple assumption that ordinary recreational paintball in England, Wales and Scotland is legally equivalent to conventional firearms commerce.

3. Executive summary

Purpose. This paper examines evidence submitted to the UK Paintball Sports Federation concerning the effect of Google Ads restrictions on lawful UK paintball operators. It combines primary industry evidence with current public sources on the legal status of paintball, Google advertising policy and the UK digital-search market. It is the final UKPSF paper on the evidence available at the dataset freeze of 2 October 2026; where the dataset does not support a reliable national estimate, the paper states that limitation rather than extrapolating beyond the evidence.

92% of ad-attempting respondents reported rejection

40% median estimated enquiry/booking reduction

£1.73m+ conservative annual-loss floor in sample

0 successful appeal outcomes reported

Headline evidence from the cleaned respondent dataset:

·         31 raw forms were received between 10 August and 2 October 2026. These reduce to 28 unique respondent contacts for operator-level analysis because one multi-site operator submitted four forms using the same contact and repeated economic figures.

·         25 of 28 unique respondents (89.3%) had attempted to advertise paintball through Google Ads. 23 of those 25 (92.0%) reported that an advert had been rejected.

·         21 respondents said they appealed. None reported a successful resolution: 15 recorded “Rejected” and 6 recorded a “Generic Response”.

·         23 of 28 respondents (82.1%) described the business effect as severe or significant.

·         24 of 28 (85.7%) reported reducing staffing; 17 (60.7%) reported reducing opening days; and 23 (82.1%) reported cancelling expansion plans.

·         25 respondents supplied a usable numerical estimate of reduced enquiries/bookings. The median estimate was 40% and the mean was 39.6%.

·         Across 21 unique respondents with interpretable monetary annual-loss responses, a deliberately conservative lower-bound total of at least £1,733,000 is recorded. The mean of these usable lower-bound monetary responses is £82,524 and the median is £70,000. These are sample statistics, not national estimates. Ambiguous percentage-only, unknown and clearly non-annual entries are excluded; “+” values and ranges are taken at their lower bound.

·         16 of the 23 respondents reporting a rejection explicitly used the words gun, firearm or weapon when recording Google’s stated reason. This finding is based on respondent descriptions; where preserved screenshots or emails are available, those records should be retained as the primary documentary support.

·         Current employment responses represent at least 388 people/roles across the unique respondent businesses on a conservative lower-bound reading. This is employment exposure, not a measure of jobs lost.

·         25 respondents supplied interpretable annual customer numbers totalling at least 222,500 customer visits/participants per year. These figures may include non-paintball activities at mixed-activity centres and are therefore not used as a national paintball participation estimate.

·         Respondents represent approximately 659 combined years of operating experience, with a median of 25 years in business.

The key point The dataset is strong enough to demonstrate a widespread reported business effect and a recurring enforcement and appeal pattern across established operators. It is not sufficient to support a defensible national jobs-loss, VAT-loss or Google-ad-spend figure. This final paper therefore separates observed evidence from unsupported extrapolation and leaves those quantities unvalued.

4. The Google advertising policy position

4.1 Standard Google Ads

Google’s current “Guns, gun parts and related products” advertising policy places “paintball guns and activity as a service” among examples that are not allowed. Google explains that it may apply the policy cautiously to sporting or recreational guns that can cause serious harm if misused or appear to be real guns. [8]

4.2 A relevant internal policy distinction: Things to do

Google’s separate Things to do policy expressly says that archery, axe throwing, laser tag and paintball may be allowable even where they would typically not be allowed under normal Google Ads policy. Things to do inventory can appear on Google Search and is governed through a separate travel/activity product and eligibility framework. Google began migrating Travel campaigns to new Search campaigns for travel in Q3 2026. The existence of that route therefore demonstrates a product-level distinction in how paintball activity may be treated, but this paper does not assume that Things to do provides an economically equivalent substitute for ordinary Search advertising. [9] [10]

A second policy distinction is also relevant. Google’s child ad-serving protections list paintball as “dangerous content” that is inappropriate for children or generally requires adult supervision. That shows Google already uses audience-sensitive controls for paintball in at least one advertising context. It does not by itself establish what Google should permit in Search Ads, but it is relevant when considering whether verified activity providers could be handled through proportionate audience, placement or age safeguards rather than only a blanket category exclusion. [17]

A question for Google, not a conclusion by UKPSF If paintball can be treated as an allowable recreational activity in one Google advertising product, what policy, safety or technical rationale requires a blanket exclusion from ordinary Search advertising for verified UK activity providers? The existence of different product rules does not itself prove unfair treatment, but it is a legitimate question for explanation and review.

4.3 Automated enforcement

Google states that it uses a combination of AI and human evaluation to enforce advertising policies, with more complex or nuanced cases sometimes reviewed by trained experts. [11] This paper does not assume that AI is the cause of the respondent outcomes. Instead, the repeat pattern of gun/firearms classifications, generic appeal responses and reported suspensions creates a factual basis for asking how paintball activity providers are classified, reviewed and escalated.

5. Evidence base and methodology

The UKPSF evidence-gathering form produced 31 submissions between 10 August and 2 October 2026. The form asked about attempted Google advertising, rejection reasons, appeals, business impact, estimated booking/enquiry reduction, estimated annual revenue loss, staffing, opening days, expansion plans, customer volumes and customer groups. Respondents could also upload documentary evidence such as strike notices, suspension emails and booking comparisons.

For operator-level statistics this paper uses 28 unique respondent contacts, identified by unique email address. One multi-site operator submitted four forms under the same contact details and repeated the same economic figures. Those forms remain relevant geographically, but the repeated figures are counted once in economic analysis to avoid artificial inflation.

Figure 2. Current UKPSF respondent-location map. The map shows physical respondent locations; the economic analysis separately de-duplicates repeated multi-site economic responses.

Map note: respondent locations are shown to demonstrate geographic spread. A location pin is not automatically an independent economic observation: repeated multi-site submissions from the same contact are retained geographically but de-duplicated for operator-level statistics.

Evidence quality rule Where a response was ambiguous, this paper does not force it into a number. Ranges are handled transparently, “+” values are treated as lower bounds, percentage-only answers are not converted into pounds without a defensible denominator, and repeated multi-site economic responses are de-duplicated.

6. Findings from the UKPSF evidence collection

6.1 Access to Google Ads

Figure 3. Respondent funnel. Source: UKPSF evidence form, unique respondent contacts.

25 of 28 unique respondents had attempted to advertise paintball through Google Ads. Of those, 23 (92.0%) reported an advert rejection. Among the 23 rejected respondents, 16 explicitly used the words gun, firearm or weapon when describing Google’s stated reason in the free-text field; several other responses used broader policy wording such as restricted items, not eligible or policy violation.

6.2 Appeals

21 respondents said they appealed Google’s decision. Within that group, 15 reported the outcome as rejected and 6 as a generic response. No respondent who reported appealing recorded a successful appeal outcome in the form. Separately, 23 of 28 respondents (82.1%) said they did not believe there was a meaningful appeal process.

Illustrative respondent evidence (anonymised) One multi-site operator reported a temporary account ban that took more than a month to appeal and said that Performance Max had drawn restricted imagery from its website. Another respondent described direct bookings as down roughly 50%, while noting that some bookings had shifted through third-party agencies. These statements are respondent accounts, not independently audited findings.

6.3 Reported business impact

Figure 4. Self-reported overall impact severity, unique respondent contacts.

Figure 5. Reported operational consequences, unique respondent contacts.

The concentration is notable: 23 of 28 respondents (82.1%) selected either severe or significant impact. 24 (85.7%) reported reducing staffing, 17 (60.7%) reducing opening days, and 23 (82.1%) cancelling expansion plans.

6.4 Enquiries and bookings

Figure 6. Distribution of usable respondent estimates for reduction in enquiries/bookings. Range answers use midpoints for the central descriptive statistic only.

Among 25 usable numerical responses, the median estimated reduction in enquiries/bookings was 40% and the mean was 39.6%. The range was 3% to 75%. These are self-reported estimates and are not a controlled causal estimate of Google’s effect; nevertheless, the consistency and scale of the reported reductions are material and justify closer examination against booking-system records where available.

6.5 Documentary material

The forms contain links to documentary evidence: 11 unique respondents used the general screenshot/evidence upload field, 10 supplied a strike/violation screenshot or email, 10 supplied a suspension email, and 2 supplied a booking comparison. There is overlap between these categories. UKPSF should preserve these records alongside the raw survey export, index them by evidence ID and maintain them as the documentary archive supporting this paper.

7. The economic signal in the sample

7.1 Respondent-attributed revenue loss

Using only 21 unique respondents whose annual-loss field could be interpreted as a monetary annual amount, and applying conservative rules to ranges and “+” values, the sample contains a lower-bound total of at least £1,733,000 in respondent-attributed annual revenue loss. The mean usable lower-bound monetary response is £82,524 and the median is £70,000. These are statistics for respondents who supplied interpretable monetary amounts; they are not estimates of the average UK paintball venue.

£1.73m+ conservative aggregate annual loss floor

£82.5k mean usable monetary response*

£70k median usable monetary response*

388+ current people/roles represented**

* Employment figure is a conservative lower-bound headcount reconstructed from self-reported current employment. It may include staff supporting non-paintball activities at mixed-activity businesses and is not a paintball-only FTE estimate.

The aggregate is deliberately conservative. It excludes respondents who supplied only a percentage, said the amount was unknown, supplied an ambiguous time period or left the field blank. It counts a £200,000+ response as £200,000 and a £50,000–£100,000 response at £50,000. It also counts the repeated multi-site economic submission only once.

7.2 Employment

The evidence demonstrates incidence of employment impact more strongly than it quantifies job losses. 24 of 28 respondents reported reducing staffing, but the form did not consistently ask for before-and-after headcount or full-time-equivalent employment. Current employment responses represent at least 388 people/roles using conservative lower-bound parsing, but this is not the same as jobs lost.

Why this paper does not publish a national jobs-lost figure The survey strongly indicates staffing reductions among respondents, but it did not collect consistent before-and-after paid headcount or FTE data. A national jobs-lost total would therefore require assumptions that the present evidence cannot support, so no such figure is published.

7.3 VAT and wider tax effects

The UK standard VAT rate is 20% and the VAT-registration threshold is £90,000 in 2026/27. [12] Applying 20% directly to reported revenue loss would be technically weak. VAT on a VAT-inclusive gross price is 20/120 of the gross amount; businesses below the registration threshold may not charge VAT; some reported losses may be net rather than gross; and the Exchequer effect also depends on recoverable input VAT and business-specific circumstances. Because the evidence form did not collect the necessary VAT-status and gross/net information consistently, this final paper does not publish a VAT-loss figure.

The same discipline applies to Corporation Tax, PAYE and National Insurance. Revenue loss is not the same as lost taxable profit, and reported staffing reductions cannot be converted into PAYE/NIC losses without reliable before-and-after headcount, pay and FTE data. [13] [14] The paper therefore records the direction of the likely Exchequer effect but does not attach a monetary value to it.

7.4 Foregone Google advertising spend

The evidence form did not ask respondents for historical Google Ads spend. It is therefore not possible from the present dataset to calculate how much advertising revenue Google itself may have foregone by excluding paintball activity advertising. This paper records that potential effect qualitatively but does not publish a monetary estimate.

8. The wider digital-market context

In October 2025, the Competition and Markets Authority designated Google with Strategic Market Status in UK general search and search advertising. The CMA says Google handles more than 90% of general search queries in the UK and that more than 200,000 UK firms spend over £10 billion annually on Google search advertising. [15] [16]

Strategic Market Status is not a finding that Google has broken the law. The significance for this paper is narrower: access to search advertising takes place in a market the CMA has formally identified as strategically important, and the evidence here concerns whether a lawful SME sector can access that advertising route on transparent and proportionate terms.

9. What the evidence supports - and its limitations

9.1 Findings the current dataset can support

·         There is a widespread reported effect among the respondents, not a single-business complaint.

·         Rejection and enforcement reasons frequently reference guns, firearms or weapons.

·         No respondent who said they appealed recorded a successful appeal outcome in the form.

·         Reported operational effects include staffing reductions, reduced opening days and cancelled expansion plans.

·         Usable respondent estimates indicate a median 40% reduction in enquiries/bookings.

·         Conservative, de-duplicated, interpretable monetary responses already exceed £1.73 million in annual respondent-attributed losses within the sample.

·         The respondents include long-established businesses and businesses serving families, schools, youth groups, birthday parties and corporate customers.

9.2 Claims not supported by the current evidence

·         That Google has acted unlawfully or breached the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act.

·         That all reported revenue decline was caused solely by Google rather than wider market conditions.

·         A precise UK-wide jobs-loss number. The survey records widespread staffing reductions but did not collect consistent before-and-after paid headcount or FTE data.

·         A precise Exchequer loss from VAT, Corporation Tax, PAYE or National Insurance. The necessary business-level tax, margin and payroll inputs were not collected consistently.

·         A precise figure for Google advertising revenue foregone. Historical Google Ads spend was not collected in the evidence form.

·         A national total for paintball-industry losses. The respondent sample is substantial evidence of impact, but it is not a probability sample and does not provide a sufficiently verified national denominator for a defensible UK-wide extrapolation.

10. Proportionate routes to resolution

The evidence does not require a choice between an unrestricted advertising environment and a blanket prohibition. If Google accepts that verified recreational paintball activity providers are materially different from conventional firearms sellers, there are several potential safeguards that could be explored without prejudging Google’s policy response:

·         Allow advertising by verified UK recreational activity providers while continuing to prohibit the sale or promotion of prohibited or high-risk weapon products.

·         Apply age, audience or placement restrictions where proportionate, rather than excluding the activity category entirely.

·         Require landing pages to be activity-booking pages rather than equipment-sale pages.

·         Create a contextual or specialist review route for operators whose sites contain imagery of lawful paintball play.

·         Provide a meaningful escalation process where automated or first-line review classifies a lawful activity as conventional firearms commerce.

·         Explain the policy distinction between ordinary Search Ads and Things to do, including whether Things to do is intended to be a practical substitute for activity providers.

11. Conclusion

The evidence collected by the UKPSF shows a consistent pattern across established UK businesses: attempted access to Google Ads, frequent rejection under gun/firearms-related policy, unsuccessful or generic appeals, and substantial self-reported effects on enquiries, revenue, staffing, opening days and expansion. The dataset also shows that these businesses serve a broad recreational market that includes families, schools, youth groups and corporate customers.

The legal position is more nuanced than a simple firearms label. Current Home Office and Scottish Government guidance distinguish ordinary recreational paintball markers in normal use from conventional firearms activity. That distinction is directly relevant when assessing whether lawful paintball activity providers should be classified in the same way as firearms or weapons businesses.

This paper is therefore presented as the UKPSF’s final evidence paper on the material available at the 2 October 2026 dataset freeze. It deliberately avoids unsupported national extrapolations while setting out a substantial and consistent sample-level pattern. UKPSF asks Google, regulators and other relevant stakeholders to consider the evidence, the legal distinction applying to ordinary recreational paintball, the reported lack of effective appeal outcomes, and whether a more proportionate route for verified activity providers can be established.

Appendix A. Methodology and technical notes

Method	Treatment in this paper
Collection period	10 August 2026 to 2 October 2026.
Raw submissions	31 Google Form submissions.
Primary analysis unit	28 unique respondent contacts, de-duplicated by email address for operator-level statistics.
Multi-site treatment	One operator submitted four forms with the same contact and repeated economic figures. The locations can be retained for geographic display, but repeated economic values are counted once.
Booking/enquiry reduction	25 usable numerical estimates. Simple mean 39.6%; median 40%. Range answers use the midpoint only for the central descriptive statistic; these figures describe the respondent sample and are not used for national extrapolation.
Annual revenue loss	21 unique respondents supplied interpretable monetary annual-loss values. Conservative aggregate floor: £1,733,000. Ranges and “+” values use lower bounds. Ambiguous non-annual or percentage-only answers are excluded.
Employment	Yes/no staffing-reduction answers are reported as incidence only. Current headcount is conservatively parsed for scale, not used as a jobs-lost estimate.
Customer totals	At least 222,500 annual customers/participants across 25 usable responses. Mixed-activity venues mean this is not treated as a paintball-only national participation count.
Self-selection	Respondents were participants in a UKPSF evidence-gathering exercise and are not a random sample of all UK operators. This is a material limitation.
Causality	Business impacts are respondent-attributed estimates. They are not independently audited causal estimates isolating Google from all other market factors.
Documentary evidence	Uploaded screenshots/emails and booking comparisons form part of the supporting evidence archive and should be preserved and indexed by UKPSF alongside the raw survey export.
National extrapolation	Not performed in this final paper. The respondent sample is not a probability sample and the available evidence does not provide a sufficiently verified national denominator or the business-level variables required for defensible UK-wide estimates.

A.1 Calculation conventions

Dataset freeze: This final paper uses the 31 Google Form submissions received between 10 August and 2 October 2026. The raw export is retained unchanged. Cleaning, de-duplication and parsing rules are analytical layers applied separately so that every published statistic can be traced back to the original response.

·         Percentages are shown against the relevant denominator, not automatically against all 31 raw forms.

·         “Unique respondent contacts” is used for survey-opinion and operator-level metrics to prevent one multi-site respondent from carrying four times the weight.

·         Geographic mapping can still show genuine separate physical venues even where economic responses are de-duplicated.

·         For monetary ranges, the aggregate floor uses the lower bound. Midpoints are used only where explicitly stated for sample-level descriptive statistics; no national central estimate is derived from these responses.

·         “£200,000+” is treated as £200,000 for the floor. “£50,000–£100,000” is treated as £50,000 for the floor.

·         An answer that appears to describe one month rather than an annual figure is excluded from the annual-loss sum until clarified.

·         No missing answer is treated as zero unless the respondent explicitly entered zero.

Appendix B. Evidence register and source framework

Primary evidence is indexed conceptually as E01-E31, with identifying details retained securely by UKPSF. Public use of individual respondent material should be anonymised or consented where appropriate. External references used in this paper are listed below.

[1] UKPSF Constitution, Committee and “What is Paintball?” pages. https://ukpsf.com/constitution/

[2] Jarvi et al. Measurements of Heart Rate and Accelerometry to Determine the Physical Activity Level in Boys Playing Paintball, International Journal of Exercise Science (2013). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27182396/

[3] Leeds Beckett University Competitive paintball – a positive impact on health and wellbeing in a predominantly male population (2017). https://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/news/0617-competitive-paintball/

[4] Sport England Physical wellbeing. https://www.sportengland.org/about-us/physical-wellbeing

[5] Sport England Mental wellbeing / social value research. https://www.sportengland.org/research-and-data/research/social-value-and-return-investment-sport-and-physical-activity

[6] Home Office Guide on firearms licensing law, updated 18 September 2026, paragraphs 2.48–2.50. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/firearms-law-guidance-to-the-police-2012/guide-on-firearms-licensing-law-accessible-version

[7] Scottish Government Air weapon licensing in Scotland: guide – definition of an air weapon / paintball guns. https://www.gov.scot/publications/guide-air-weapon-licensing-scotland/pages/3/

[8] Google Guns, gun parts and related products – Advertising Policies Help. https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/16489226?hl=en-GB

[9] Google Things to do content and referral experience policies. https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/10723240?hl=en-GB

[10] Google About Things to do ads. https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/10723637?hl=en-GB

[11] Google Advertising policies – use of AI and human evaluation. https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/13584894?hl=en-GB

[12] HMRC VAT rates and registration threshold, 2026/27. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/budget-2025-overview-of-tax-legislation-and-rates-ootlar/annex-a-rates-and-allowances

[13] HMRC National Insurance rates and categories, 2026/27. https://www.gov.uk/national-insurance-rates-letters/contribution-rates

[14] UK legislation / HMRC Corporation Tax rates for financial year 2026. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2025/8/section/13/2026-04-02/data.xht

[15] Competition and Markets Authority Google’s general search and search advertising services – case page, updated September 2026. https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/googles-general-search-and-search-advertising-services

[16] Competition and Markets Authority CMA confirms Google has strategic market status in search services, 10 October 2025. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cma-confirms-google-has-strategic-market-status-in-search-services

[17] Google Ads, Ad-serving protections for children – paintball listed as age-sensitive/dangerous content requiring adult supervision. https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/14170968?hl=en-GB

END OF UKPSF FINAL EVIDENCE PAPER