The Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) is threatening to launch legal action against the Gambling Commission (GC) if it presses ahead with the implementation of the next phase of affordability checks for players, as it believes one in five customers would be required to provide financial information.

A Commission board meeting is scheduled to take place on Thursday, 21 May 2026, when Financial Risk Assessments (FRAs) could be given the green light as a means of identifying high-spending online gambling players who may be experiencing financial problems and offer them support.

The GC says these assessments would be automatically triggered if certain spending amounts are hit by a customer and would utilise data from credit reference agencies. However, many industry stakeholders believe customers could be reluctant to share their data and may instead wager with black market operators to avoid FRAs entirely.

FRAs are different from Financial Vulnerability Checks (FVCs), which use informa..

The UK’s Gambling Commission has reiterated that its affordability solutions will have little to no impact on the vast majority of British bettors amid a wave of criticism.

Affordability checks, as they colloquially are known though the Commission prefers to avoid this term, have stoked a lot of controversy lately, with the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) even going as far as to say legal action may be necessary to prevent full implementation.

In a speech this week at the Clarion Payments Providers event, Ian Angus, the Commission’s Director of Policy, reasserted that the planned Finance Risk Assessments (FRAs) are “are not affordability checks by another name”.

“Nor do the proposed thresholds for an assessment limit or cap customer spend,” he said.

Commission stands by affordability numbers

The need for some kind of affordable solution for UK gambling was promoted heavily by those calling for legal reform during the 2020-2023 review of the 2005 Gambling Act.

When the review Whi..

There will be growing alarm among online gambling licensees after it emerged that the frequency of affordability checks triggered for UK players could far exceed the estimates laid out in the White Paper.

It was expected that just 3% of players would be subjected to Financial Vulnerability Checks (FVCs); however, the total observed during the initial implementation phase hit 7% – according to an update provided by the Gambling Commission’s senior policy research team of Sarah Webster and Richard Sutcliffe.

Furthermore, it is anticipated that this number will rise further when thresholds for full checks are decreased from £500 to £150.

Insights about light-touch FVCs have been provided by the Gambling Commission (GC), offering information on their impact since their implementation in August 2024, before forecasting what the next steps will be.

Looking ahead, the GC reported positive feedback from the period, but there were also concerns raised over a lack of awareness or clarity ..

The British government is swinging back the hammer to drive the final nail into the coffin of NHS England, one of three administrative bodies tasked with overseeing funds generated from the statutory levy on gambling harms.

Yesterday, King Charles III delivered his annual speech, outlining the Labour government’s legislative plans for the rest of the year. Of the various bills announced by the King yesterday, the NHS Modernisation Bill was addressed for a forthcoming application.

If approved, the bill will abolish NHS England, a body of the Department of Health and Social Care established by the previous Conservative government to oversee the planning, budgeting and delivery of NHS services across English constituencies and councils.

The abolition of NHS England is nothing new, with Keir Starmer’s government having set out plans to do so over a year ago, the return of the UK’s health service under a streamlined framework to address the nation’s most urgent health needs and region..