Permitted activities with the right licence

UK Gambling Regulatory Bodies How Casinos Are Regulated

These operators tend not to offer personalised account management or tailored incentives for specific customers. The number of customers on such schemes has fallen substantially and there have been no enforcement cases related to operators failing to meet the new standards. The Gambling Commission’s significantly strengthened protections around online VIP schemes specifically (as defined in the existing Gambling Commission rules) are making sure they are not used to exploit gamblers who are suffering harm. Nonetheless, the question remains as to whether incentivising continued spending from customers who have already gambled high sums should fundamentally be considered too dangerous a practice in a sector with a known addiction risk, especially where that high spending is in itself a risk indicator.

We want all licensed operators to provide access to the ombudsman to ensure all customers are protected equally. The information that the ombudsman collates through complaints will also help the Commission in planning its enforcement activity and industry to inform processes and support vulnerable customers. The body would adjudicate complaints relating to social responsibility or gambling harm where an operator is not able to resolve these. We will look at how industry, working with all stakeholders in the sector, can create an ombudsman that is fully operationally independent in line with Ombudsman Association standards, and is credible with customers. Between Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) providers and the Gambling Commission’s contact centre, approximately 2,000 customer complaints per year relate to social responsibility, gambling harm and safer gambling. As the Commission’s process for requesting datasets from across the sector to support its regulatory purposes reaches a sufficient level of maturity, greater researcher access to this suitably packaged and anonymised data will lead to new areas of — and approaches to — research on gambling.

The proposals put forward by industry for new machine games are not yet fully developed and will require further exploration with the government and the Gambling Commission. We have identified two areas for change — proposals for new machine games and re-assessing the balance of Category B machines in venues — which we explore below. The call for evidence asked whether any rules for the land-based sector should be changed in order to meet the objectives set out in the Review. A consultation will allow the industry to respond to any principles and specific requirements that the government and Gambling Commission require in order to ensure that the introduction of cashless payments does not lead to an increase in risk to consumers.

This would be in line with the outcomes of its consultation of online slot design, which identified the risks of harm from functionality specifically designed to facilitate simultaneous play. The Bingo Association proposed that operators should be allowed to offer a wider variety of games, including side bets on a bingo game (as is currently possible when playing bingo games online). We acknowledge that licensed premises do have an entitlement to hold machines and there are costs involved in the system of notification. Currently under 10% of pubs have more than four machines and the industry argued there would be no significant increases should the automatic entitlement and current process of notification and permits be changed.

In your view, is there any specific safer gambling messaging that should be considered within cashless gambling? This has been voluntarily adopted by BGC members and its objective is to improve consistency when displaying Safer Gambling information across the land-based sector. As previously discussed, an optimal strategy to combat disassociation when gambling combines breaks in play with safer gambling messaging.

Drinking in pubs is legal, but being drunk on licensed premises is an offence under the Licensing Act 1872. They are legal if held in a private setting without entry fees or profit; public or profit-based games are illegal. Private gambling at home is legal if it’s among friends, not open to the public, and no one profits from running the game. Low-stakes gambling, such as poker, is permitted in pubs under strict rules, with no entry fees, no rake, and limits on stakes and prizes.

Further updates linked to the DMCC Act will affect how gambling complaints are handled. On 6 April 2026, the Commission will update several licence conditions to align with the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCC Act). For operators, the higher threshold slightly reduces reporting obligations for small ownership changes, but loan transparency rules become stricter. The service provides a single point of contact for licensing queries, available by phone and email between 10 a.m. The Commission has also launched a Licence Support service, designed to give operators direct access to technical guidance. For players, the change is unlikely to affect day-to-day gambling, but it reinforces the regulator’s focus on keeping gambling safe, fair, and crime-free.

• 6Additionally, some licensees will be subject to specific statutory requirements to retain relevant data, under the Money Laundering Regulations 2017 for example.
• It is also important to recognise that problems with gambling can be one of a number of harms individuals suffer simultaneously; for instance while gambling addiction can impact mental health and wellbeing, poor mental health and heavy alcohol use are commonly suffered alongside gambling harms.
• Second, it seeks to prevent gambling from being linked to any form of criminal activity.
• In practice, venues which include sportsbooks as part of their product offering do not utilise a maximum of 40 — the largest casino by gambling area currently sites 12 terminals.
• We will amend these regulations so that gaming tables where staff are not present and the player operates or controls the gaming apparatus are also excluded for these purposes.

What do you think are the potential impacts of raising licence fees on licensing authorities? In order to produce a more robust estimate for funding raised, we require additional data on the current number of licence applications and live licences. The additional annual cost per premises is an average across all premises types and in reality, will differ depending on the type of licence held. The additional annual cost per premises and the total additional annual funding for licensing authorities has been estimated using existing premises numbers.

Permitted activities with the right licence

Where genuine concerns, based on a careful and thorough analysis of GDPR and Commission regulation, are raised with us we will work with industry and the ICO to resolve them. We recommend that licensees have regard to that guidance, as it will assist them to assess the best way of achieving their regulatory requirements under their licence and also meet obligations under data protection law. Indeed, being transparent with consumers at the outset (including informing them that their data may be passed to regulators when requested) may assist businesses to answer subsequent queries about the retention and use of their personal data for regulatory and public interest purposes.

Casino premises

If a site looks “UK-friendly” but dodges licensing, it’s also dodging the obligations that come with it. A lot of today’s changes trace back to the Gambling Act review and the wider reform programme aimed at modernising rules for a digital gambling market. Eventually, these laws were repealed and the country embraced legal gambling. Poorer citizens conducted street gambling, and while this was illegal, enforcement was difficult to administer. However, on-course betting was permitted at horse tracks, but only the upper class could partake. Parliament issued the Gaming Act of 1845 and Betting Act of 1853, both of which effectively ceased all commercial gambling.

Gambling Commission’s approach to the unlicensed sector

A small minority called for a full ban on all gambling activity, but this sentiment was not widespread. Some of these individuals’ responses were provided in templates circulated by charity or campaign organisations in an effort to facilitate personal experience engagement with the call for evidence. These came from a diverse range of respondents (Figure 31) and varied from short letters outlining personal experiences of gambling (both good and bad), to full analyses responding to every question which ran to hundreds of pages in length. This annex gives an overview of the responses we received and the other sources of evidence we considered.

Operators who run betting shops, where staff alerts are already available, agreed that machines accepting cashless payments should also be required to have this feature. The proposed thresholds differ from the current industry standard in casinos where it is £250 deposited and 60 minutes of play. We think that the starting non gamestop casino point for these thresholds should be deposits of £150 and 20 minutes of play across all machines but understand that further evidence may arise during its consultation. Some respondents also stated that there should be a difference depending on the category of machine, with higher limits for B1 machines. We do not propose that Category D machines are required to allow customers to set time and monetary thresholds in order to accept direct debit card payments.

This process of formal review – Section 116 of the Gambling Act 2005 – can result in almost any sort of penalty from the regulator, including suspension and revocation of licences. Remote licences are, in fact, a legal requirement for any business, wherever located, to offer facilities for gambling to British residents. Persons wishing to enter the British land-based casino market have typically purchased existing businesses. There are no tender or bidding processes, other than in the occasional case of land-based casino franchises being proposed. This distinction cannot be ignored, and the regulator has no power to grant a licence that authorises both remote and land-based activity. Hence, the typical remote gambling business will require three types of British licence to lawfully offer remote gambling to British residents – an “operating” licence, a software “operating” licence and a suite of personal licences for its main personnel.

The a represents the foundational legislation governing all forms of gambling in Great Britain, creating a comprehensive regulatory framework that replaced previous fragmented gambling laws. In the UK, gambling winnings are tax-free, whether you win £50 on a bet or £1 million in the lottery. Staff are required to check identification for customers who appear to be under 25 years old, replacing the previous threshold of 21 years. All gambling licensees must conduct test purchasing operations to ensure compliance.

It also highlighted that inflexible funding negatively impacts ‘the Commission’s ability to ensure consumers are protected from … new risks’. The National Audit Office found that the requirement to adjust fees by statutory instrument “makes it more difficult for the Commission to invest in new skills to quickly address changing risks”. Some industry submissions suggested those who demonstrate effective governance and procedural controls should pay lower fees, although a number of other submissions from industry were strongly against such a proposal. They pointed out that the resources of the Commission are small compared to the financial power of the industry that it regulates and relative to other regulators.

The industry’s case for cashless gambling on machines is based on changes in how society uses cash, and the safety implications for land-based venues. It also highlights that any move towards debit card payments directly on gaming machines would need to strike an appropriate balance between regulation applicable to modern payment methods, consumer benefits and protection of the licensing objectives. Electronic terminals do not count as gaming machines and like live multi-player tables do not have stake and prize limits, other than operators’ own house limits.

Additionally, foreign operators from whitelisted gambling jurisdictions were required to pay a 15% point-of-consumption (POC) tax on gross profits. They can be classified as Category A, B, C, or D, and under Section 236 of the Gambling Act 2005, Category B machines are further divided into subcategories. Casino games are a specific subset of games of chance that may be offered only in casino premises; they are distinct from equal-chance games. All casino operators must obtain a license from the Gambling Commission, and their profits are subject to taxation depending on the type of game they offer.

Where these background checks fail to provide sufficient assurance that the account holder is of legal age, operators are required to have alternative age verification methods in place, which could involve requesting documentation. Some campaign groups called for even stronger online age verification measures, such as requiring ID document photos for all accounts or mandatory video calls on account creation. The largest football pools operator already prevents under 18s from creating an online account and supports increasing the minimum age to 18.

Unlike the arcade sector, bingo clubs would not remove substantial numbers of tablets as these machines are primarily used for playing the game of bingo itself. We also received a small number of responses from local authorities, charities and gaming machine manufacturers. The supplementary consultation was shared with all of the initial respondents to the land-based gambling consultation who left contact information, and received 16 responses. Do you have any additional insights or evidence relating to recent trends in GGY, profit and costs for bingo and AGC operators?

Currently, gambling treatment services and support in both countries are mainly provided through primary care and the voluntary sector, though those in need of more specialist treatment services may be referred to the National Problem Gambling Clinics in London and elsewhere in England. While the majority agreed that operator data regarding consumer behaviours at the individual account level would be fundamental to any repository, others also argued for datasets around treatment demand and access, complaints, and wider commercial data. There was widespread support for the creation of a data repository which would be available to researchers, though specific proposals as to the extent of the repository and the sort of data it would collect ranged widely. Three researchers account for nearly 40% of all British studies published on gambling in academic journals between 2019 and 2021.

Visitors of SuperCasinoSites should keep in mind gambling can be highly addictive and as such, should always be approached responsibly and with due measure. According to UKGC research, roughly 22% of online gamblers who use credit cards can be classified as problem gamblers. They cannot promise guaranteed winnings or suggest that gambling can solve financial or personal problems. For example, gambling ads may not target children or young people under 18. It is a self-regulatory body, meaning its operations are funded not by the government but by a voluntary industry levy.