UK

UK gambling nets full cooperation for Safer Gambling Week

Safer Gambling Week 2025 (#SGWeek2025) takes place this week (17-23 November), with all UK gambling stakeholders expressing their full commitment to promoting safer play and responsible gambling.

Entering its ninth consecutive year, the initiative is co-led and coordinated by the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC), amusement trade body BACTA, the Bingo Association – and all other memberships associated with UK Gambling.

Last year’s edition highlighted that over 1.5 million unique accounts used a safer gambling tool during the week, which was a 22% YoY increase. The number of people who set deposit limits went up by 14%.

Furthermore, more than 60 million impressions on online safer gambling messages were generated across the biggest social media platforms – X, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. It is safe to say that the organisers will aim to break these records in 2025 in the week running from 17 to 23 November.

Baroness Twycross, UK’s Minister for Gambling, said: “As a Government, we are fully committed to reducing harmful gambling and protecting those at risk. That is why we have introduced a statutory levy aimed at providing funding to tackle this.

“We welcome the contribution that Safer Gambling Week makes. It provides a good opportunity to highlight the tools and support that is available to people who may need it.”

Also engaging with the campaign was Andrew Rhodes, CEO of the UK Gambling Commission, who reiterated the importance of this week’s activity for the industry and its commitment to consumer protection.

“While progress has been made, we must continue to ensure that the tools and protections available to consumers are effective and widely promoted.

“Collaboration and evidence-based action remain central to making gambling in Great Britain fairer, safer, and crime-free,” Rhodes commented.

Joining the responsible gambling conversation was also Louie French, Conservative Party MP and Shadow Minister for Culture, Media and Sport, who said: “I’m backing the Safer Gambling Week campaign to tackle gambling-related harm. This important initiative brings the industry together to support safe and responsible gambling.

“Millions of people safely enjoy a flutter every month, whether it’s on the horses, football, or the lottery. But for some, gambling can cause immense harm to their lives. It’s vital that the industry quickly identifies and supports these people.”

Interestingly, French also made a comment against the widely-speculated gambling tax increases that are expected to be announced with the UK’s new Budget on 26 November.

The public debate has been led by speculations whether Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves will increase the duties across the board or leave betting out of the equation.

In his Safer Gambling Week statement, French added: “If the Government taxes people away from regulated bookmakers, they’ll fuel unsafe betting online.”

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UK youth gambling rates stable despite survey changes

The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has published the datasets of its Young People and Gambling Survey 2025 facing its now customary questioning.

The protection of adolescents from gambling remains one of the most emotive in UK gambling, particularly amid a backdrop of political concerns of digital harms and dysfunctional behaviours. Yet beyond the headlines lies a picture that is hard to frame by numbers and stats alone.

Participation rises but context matters

The Commission reports that 49% of young people aged 11–17 participated in some form of gambling in the past year. But this topline figure is under the context that the majority of activities are “legal, non-commercial, or informal,” ranging from arcade machines to private bets between friends.

Of significance, 30% of young people reported spending their own money on gambling — a modest rise from 27% in 2024.

The Commission attributes this increase primarily to a rise in unregulated, informal gambling, not underage access to licensed products. In fact:

21% spent money on arcade machines
14% bet with friends or family
5% played cards for money
Just 6% spent money on age‑restricted, regulated forms of gambling — exactly the same level as last year

Youth problem gambling “statistically stable”
The most politically sensitive figure — the youth problem gambling rate — is reported at 1.2%, down from 1.5% in 2024. The Gambling Commission is clear: this shift is “statistically stable,” meaning the change is not significant given sample size and margins of error.

But here is where industry analysts such as Dan Waugh of Regulus Partners who raise important questions.

The DSM‑IV‑MR‑J, used to classify “problem gambling”, is not a diagnostic tool. Its thresholds are broad: behaviours such as using lunch money to gamble or arguing with parents can count toward a score of “four or more” — the bar for an “adult problem gambler.”

By comparison, NHS Health Surveys, using adult screening tools (PGSI, DSM‑IV), consistently find near-zero problem gambling in 16–19‑year‑olds. If the “crisis” identified by DSM‑IV‑MR‑J disappears as soon as participants turn 16 or 18, something is off.

This leads Waugh and others to argue that the tool inflates prevalence and can create the appearance of a “youth gambling problem” that the harder data simply does not support.

Advertising high exposure but no causation
Advertising remains the political lightning rod. The survey shows:

49% of young people see gambling ads weekly on social media
47% see them in apps
Boys are particularly exposed (53% on YouTube vs 31% of girls)

But again, exposure does not mean influence. The Commission’s own data shows most young people do not act on these ads, and many of the ads they see are for lotteries, not high-risk gambling products.

Waugh also notes that some studies cited to support advertising restrictions use “extraordinarily wide definitions of children” — including people up to age 25 — or classify someone as “susceptible” if they refuse to say they will never gamble in the future. The framework is hardly rigorous.

Check the regulatory temperature

Operators recognise their responsibility to protect young people, and most already back: stricter ID checks, dedicated youth education programmes and heavily restricted marketing pathways.

But there is growing concern that selective readings of the YPGS are being used as a blunt tool to justify sweeping restrictions. Yes — policy should evolve and safeguarding matters. But policy built on misinterpreted or overly broad data will rarely deliver the intended outcomes.

A useful tool… but poorly used
The YPGS has been shown to have been one of the best resources that have helped to inform on youth behaviour, in particular with regards to first adolescent engagements with gambling..

However, when its findings are stripped of nuance or weaponised, it is little a guide to constructive policy and great simply for serving as a political sledgehammer.

If it means to actually improve protections for young people, then we need more accurate measures to determine youth/teen harms. Policy interventions need to be based on measured analysis, not alarmism as the data is useful. but the real concern lies in how it’s used.

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UKGC slaps NetBet with £650k penalty over AML breaches

UK licence holder NetBet Enterprises Ltd has paid £650,000 to the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) after an investigation into anti-money laundering (AML) failures.

A statement from the regulator stated that the company, operator of online gambling provider NetBet UK, agreed to a settlement with the Commission after an investigation revealed social responsibility breaches as well as AML shortcomings as well.

List of AML failures
As listed in the statements, the AML failures included a lack of adequate customer financial controls, which led to a number of customers wagering “disproportionally to their net income”.

This then led to examples where a customer’s significant gambling activity would constitute harmful behaviour, but where the operator also failed to intervene – essentially marking these players as “low-risk”.

NetBet’s AML and anti-terrorist financing assessments also failed to recognise key factors when assessing gambling spend, such as “the management of third-party business relationships” and “controls of third-country nationals living in the UK”, the UKGC added.

List of social responsibility failures
On the social responsibility side, the investigation found that NetBet failed to recognise general markers of harm, such as overnight play and escalating deposits, in a timely manner – but only after a manual review was conducted.

Following on from the earlier point about cascading gambling activity, the UKGC assessed that the operator lacked “effective customer interaction systems” that minimise the risk for customers.

Lastly, it was also found that NetBet had submitted “inaccurate information” when filing its regulatory return forms. SBC News has reached out to NetBet for a comment.

UKGC extra vigilant as 2025 nears end
As per the settlement, the UKGC reported that the £650,000 paid by NetBet will be used to fund social responsibility causes.

John Pierce, UKGC Director of Enforcement, said: “This case highlights the serious consequences of failing to meet anti-money laundering and social responsibility obligations.

“We expect all operators to take note and ensure their systems are not only well-designed but are working effectively to protect consumers and to keep crime out of gambling.

“The operator was instructed to take immediate action and make significant improvements to its systems and controls. This included strengthening their risk assessments, improving how they identify and respond to indicators of harm, and ensuring the accuracy of the data they report to us.

“Alongside the £650,000 financial penalty, the operator is also required to commission an independent audit of its policies, procedures, and controls to ensure the necessary improvements they have implemented are properly embedded and remain effective in practice.

“Our focus is on ensuring operators meet the standards we expect, and where they fall short, we will intervene.”

In recent weeks, the UKGC has been ramping up its enforcement of AML regulations, already leading up to several high-profile cases.

Earlier in October, Platinum Gaming, which operates FDJ United-owned Unibet in the UK, was issued a whopping £10m penalty over similar social responsibility and AML failures.

The AML clampdown is not limited to just iGaming, however, with the Victoria Gate Casino in Leeds getting its licence suspended whilst the regulator undertakes a review of its AML standards.

All of the above goes to show that the UKGC is not messing around when it comes to financial compliance and regulatory penalties – something that both iGaming and land-based operators should take at heart given the expected tax increases in next year’s Budget.

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Spribe suspension shows Commission is turning attention to B2B firms

The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has suspended the licence of Aviator-developer Spribe OÜ. The Poland-based company held a software licence with the Commission, but the regulator states it has come across cases of ‘serious non-compliance’ with its hosting requirements. In short, it appears that Spribe has been carrying out casino game hosting without holding the appropriate licence from the UKGC. The company…

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ASA: William Hill FOBT voucher could incentivise irresponsible play

William Hill has been reprimanded by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) over a promotional voucher that was deemed to possibly encourage irresponsible play.

The ASA’s report stated that a customer received a voucher from a slot machine in a William Hill betting shop on 3 April 2025 at 11:51am. The voucher had the following text:

“You’ve won a £5 cash match on any game!”

“Redeemable between 03/04/2025 – 03/04/2025 from 05:20 PM – 11:59 PM in any venue”.

Within a complaint to the ASA, it was challenged whether the timeframe between the voucher being received and when it could be redeemed was a breach of the CAP code since it was “socially undesirable by encouraging irresponsible use”.

Despite William Hill arguing that the voucher didn’t breach the code or encourage socially undesirable or irresponsible behaviour, the ASA upheld the complaint and told the operator that the ad must not appear again in its current form and that future promotions must not encourage irresponsible behaviour.

William Hill: voucher not ‘designed to drive repeated play’

The voucher was issued to customers who deposit £50 or more on an eligible gaming machine before 5:20pm on the day that the promotion is issued and valid. This figure is the total value placed in-store, including a customer’s original cash-in and subsequent winnings played again.

Evidence was provided by William Hill to the ASA that the average cash-in in relation to the three-day promotion was “below the average spend for April and May 2025”. Therefore, the operator felt the amount that must be spent “to qualify for the promotion was substantial, nor that the promotion encouraged excessive staking”.

As it was a £5 voucher and could be spent on any game, the operator believed the promotion was “a low-value, one-off reward” and didn’t “involve any progressive elements, wagering multipliers, or additional conditions beyond what was initially displayed”.

William Hill noted it was “not part of a broader incentive structure nor designed to drive repeated play”, adding that the promotion’s terms, including the staking threshold and the redemption timeframe, were “clearly and fully” communicated to customers, and they were “given sufficient information to make an informed decision before participating”.

In addition, key qualifying conditions were “displayed on digital promotional screens in the shop and the voucher reiterated those eligibility conditions”, with the voucher serving as a “confirmation of eligibility which reminded consumers of the pre-disclosed redemption timeframe”.

William Hill also argued that the voucher’s redemption was entirely optional and that customers were free to not redeem the voucher or return later the same day. The operator supplied data too, showing that most customers who qualified for the voucher didn’t redeem it, which they believed demonstrated that customers knew redemption was optional.

The operator described the £5 voucher as ‘modest’ value and “did not believe that at any stage the promotion encouraged a customer to remain on the premises to engage in excessive consumption, nor encouraged irresponsible use”.

Although the promotion began at a later time than when the voucher was awarded, William Hill stated that it “did not encourage participants to remain on the premises and therefore it did not create any time-sensitive pressure to continue playing”, adding that very few customers redeemed the voucher within two hours, with most waiting three hours.

The operator said that the extended time between the voucher being issued and redeemed “strongly indicated” that most customers left and returned later to redeem the voucher, undermining the suggestion that the redemption window “pressured customers to remain in-shop or extend their play”.

William Hill added that any concerns regarding customer behaviour would have been met with a response in line with their polices, as all staff in their shops have received training to identify signs of gambling-related harm, and gaming machines provide prompts to remind customers of their time and money spent and allow customers to set limits.

ASA calls voucher ‘irresponsible’

Acknowledging the operator’s point of view, the ASA has upheld the complaint against William Hill since the timeframe of when the voucher is issued and redeemable “created an incentive for repeated play within a short period, including visiting the betting shop twice in a single day, increasing the risk of consumers gambling more than they otherwise would”.

Since the redemption period was at a later point in the day, the authority noted that participants could only benefit if they returned to the premises or stayed until the start time of the promotion, and that those eligible for the voucher may have already placed several bets earlier the same day.

“We thus considered that linking the reward to a same-day timeframe, particularly at a limited period later on the day, incentivised behaviours that could encourage irresponsible use,” the ASA stated.

“For those reasons, we concluded that the promotion encouraged irresponsible use and breached the Code”, particularly CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 8.5 (Protection of consumers, safety and suitability).

William Hill was told by the ASA that the advert must not appear again in the form complained of and that future promotions must not encourage irresponsible behaviour.

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Andrew Rhodes: Commission has taken down thousands of illegal sites 

The UK Gambling Commission’s (UKGC) full attention remains on fighting the black market, the regulator’s CEO, Andrew Rhodes, has reaffirmed.

In a speech at the International Association of Gaming Regulators (IAGR) in Toronto, Rhodes made sure to highlight the UKGC’s continuous efforts to hit back at black market operators through a dedicated team created three-and-a-half years ago.

“We make sure there are penalties and disincentives for being in the illegal market, but also one of our obligations under the Gambling Act, which created us as an organisation is we are here to protect children and the vulnerable from being exploited by gambling,” Rhodes said.

Part of the Commission’s targeted campaign against unlicensed operators includes the disruption of online traffic through a close collaboration with search engines.

Rhodes added that he expects the UKGC to report a total of 200,000 URLs by the end of this financial year. As a result, there’s already been “nearly 100,000” blocked websites.

“We’re tracking over 1000 illegal operators as we try to shut them down… if we can remove things from search results, we make it harder to find, so we slow them down.”

Black market still in the spotlight
Despite the UKGC’s efforts, there is an interesting phenomenon going on in the UK where gambling brands that are typically unlicensed to operate are striking high profile sponsorship deals with sports clubs, particularly in the Premier League.

This led to a huge outcry earlier this year when TGP Europe was forced to leave the UK market and cease its white-label operations managing Asia-facing brands like DEBET and bj88 – partners of Wolverhampton Wanderers FC and AFC Bournemouth respectively.

Just last week, Leicester City announced that BC.GAME, another unlicensed operator, will continue to be the club’s principal partner through the 2025/26 season. All these instances are widely viewed as counter-intuitive to what the UKGC is aiming to achieve.

Potential tax hike could complicate things
On top of that, the next budget coming in on 26 November could potentially raise the tax rates for the gambling sector – with the UK Treasury looking at several options on the table.

One of which would be to align all three existing tax systems with the current Remote Gaming Duty (RGD) at 21%, which would impact the retail betting sector the hardest given that the levy there is currently at 15%.

However, another option being discussed is to raise the RGD rate from 21% to 50%, which would undoubtedly cast a huge shadow on the revenues of licensed online gambling operators. This might inadvertently impact the end user cost, leading to more black market migration.

Rhodes addressed taxation during his speech in Toronto, saying: “Now these are going to be really big debates and they’re taking place in many countries at the moment, and it is quite hard sometimes when different factors change to work out exactly what impact each individual component had.

“That’s why in GB, we’ve got an evaluation programme, which is to evaluate the impact, as best we possibly can of the different changes that the Gambling Act Review White Paper has delivered within our country.”

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Gary Neville’s Sky Bet feature puts ASA’s new guidance to the test

A Sky Bet ad featuring Gary Neville has placed the effectiveness of the Advertising Standards Authority’s (ASA) new guidance under the microscope.

The ASA has upheld its challenge that a promoted post on X by Sky Bet featuring an embedded video clip from the Overlap football podcast was likely to be of strong appeal to those under 18 years of age because of the presence of Neville. The decision was made in spite of Neville having retired from the game in 2011.

As a result, the ASA found that Bonne Terre Ltd, which trades as Sky Bet, had breached the advertising rules which all UK-licensed operators must follow.

Weighing up the risks

In reaching its decision, the ASA used new guidance released by the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) and the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP), which considers that an influencer followed by over 100,000 social media accounts registered to people under-18 is “indicative of strong appeal”.

According to the ASA, when the ad was posted in February 2023, 5% of Neville’s 1.6 million Instagram followers were registered as under 18, which amounts to 80,000. Additionally, 1% of his 5.5 million X followers were registered as under 18, bringing his under-18 following on the two platforms to approximately 135,000.

The ASA could not garner the same data for under-18 followers on TikTok and Facebook, but noted that the former Manchester United right back had 963,400 and 42,395 followers on the platforms, respectively.

Although the new guidance has set the follower threshold at 100,000, it also clarifies that the ASA can deem a personality to be of strong appeal if they fall under that figure, or not of strong appeal even if they have more than 100,000 under-18 followers.

Given this case-by-case basis approach to regulating marketing, Sky Bet argued that Neville did not hold strong appeal to under-18s.

In the clip posted on X, Neville is seen participating in a fan debate on the Overlap podcast discussing which team would win the Premier League in that year. During the clip, Sky Bet’s logo appeared intermittently and at the end stated “brought to you by Sky Bet”, and the BeGambleAware logo appeared.

According to the ruling, Sky Bet stated that 1.2% of the Overlap’s audience was aged 13-17 years, and that figure dropped to 0.5% for the advertised episode.

The operator also noted that Neville ended his playing career in 2011 and fell into the category of “long retired”, which on its own would place the eight-time Premier League winner as low-risk of appealing to under-18s according to the CAP code.

Alongside the Overlap, Neville also works as a TV pundit on Premier League broadcasts and for England’s international matches. The ASA stated that, in this context only, this would place him in the “moderate risk” category of the guidance.

However, the ASA’s decision hinged on the demographics of his social media followers.

The ruling stated: “We considered that over 135,000 social media follower accounts registered to people under-18 was a significant number in absolute terms, with the true total figure potentially higher due to the absence of data for the other social media platforms.

“Although we accepted that his career as a football pundit and his media profile in isolation would have placed him within the ‘moderate risk’ category, we considered that a large number of social media follower accounts that were registered to under-18s and followed Neville indicated that the inclusion of Neville in an ad would make it of strong appeal to under-18s.”

Setting a precedent?

Although the ASA recognised that X had protection policies for under-18 users in 2023 and the ad was set to target over-25s with a stated interest in sport, it also noted that the platform relies on users self-verifying their age upon sign-up.

Like in a previous ruling against Midnite, it cited research from Ofcom that found 32% of eight to 17-year-olds with at least one social media account had a registered user age of 18 or above.

As a result, the ASA considered it likely that a significant number of children who had not used their real date of birth when signing up to X could see and be promoted to content from verified gambling accounts.

The ASA also addressed the issue of duplicate social media followers. While accepting that it is likely some individuals would follow the same person across different social media platforms, the ASA considered follower counts “a strong indication of that personality’s appeal and level of popularity”.

“In the absence of data indicating that duplication significantly reduced the follower count for a personality, we considered that advertisers should err on the side of assuming that all were individual followers,” the ruling continued.

Sky Bet were warned that the ad must not appear in its current form on social media again, and told not to include a person or character with a strong appeal to those under-18 in future advertising.

ASA accelerating action

Sky Bet was not the only operator to fall foul of the ASA in its latest set of rulings.

Eaton Gate Gaming Ltd, which trades as Kwiff, was similarly reprimanded for a post on Kwiff’s X account which featured Sir Lewis Hamilton.

The post in question featured text stating “A potentially huge weekend for Sir Lewis Hamilton ahead of the British Grand Prix at Silverstone [race car emoji] #F1”. The post contained an image of Sir Lewis Hamilton and a banner across the bottom that featured an 18+ symbol and the BeGambleAware.org logo.

Kwiff argued that the post followed CAP guidance, which stated that “motorsports and golf are more adult-oriented and unlikely to be of inherent ‘strong appeal”, and cited a 2022 report that found the median age of F1 fans was 32 and the majority were 25-44.

Kwiff also highlighted that its X page had 11,700 followers, and 0% of those were aged 13-17.

Given that the post was published the day before the 2024 British Grand Prix, which Hamilton won, the ASA ruled that the purpose of the communication was to promote Kwiff’s brand and gambling services, therefore, it fell under the scope of the CAP Code.

The ASA assessed that Hamilton’s “exceptional success” in his sport, social media presence and long-standing career place him as a household name in the UK.

CAP guidance states that sportspeople involved in clearly adult-oriented sports who are ‘notable stars’ with significant social media and general profiles which made them well known to under-18s were likely to be of ‘moderate risk’ of strong appeal to under-18s.

In the case of Hamilton, 4% of his 37.5 million followers on Instagram, approximately 1.5 million, were under 18 years of age.

This alone places him way above the 100,000 threshold, even before numbers from any other platforms are considered, and the ASA deemed him likely to have a strong appeal to under-18s.

“We acknowledged that Sir Lewis Hamilton was primarily famous for his association with an adult-oriented sport, but considered he was very well known to a general UK audience, including to children and young people. We considered, based on his public profile, commercial partnerships, media appearances and UK under-18 social media following, that he had strong appeal to under-18s,” the ruling concluded.

Betway Ltd was also reprimanded for airing a pre-roll YouTube advert that featured football fans wearing clothes and scarves with the Chelsea FC logo.

The ASA upheld a complaint that argued featuring the Chelsea logo would likely be of strong appeal to under-18s, and therefore breached the advertising code.

Under the CAP Code, football is deemed an activity of inherent strong appeal to under-18s.

Although the ASA noted that using the club logo in a standalone context would have been acceptable, showing it on fans’ scarves, lanyards and hats in the context of a stadium experience was likely to be of strong appeal to children and young people who supported Chelsea or followed football more widely.

Like with X, the ASA also cited YouTube’s age verification policy, which relies on users to self-report their age upon sign-up.

“Because YouTube was a media environment where users self-verified on customer sign-up and did not use robust age-verification, we considered that Betway had not excluded under-18s from the audience with the highest level of accuracy required for gambling ads where their content was likely to appeal strongly to under-18s,” the ruling explained.

Betway had argued that a brand lift survey showed that the ad campaign had resulted in an 8% increase in brand awareness, all of which was from YouTube users aged 55 and over.

The operator also stated that it had not included any active football play, wide shots of Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge stadium or extended views of the pitch to reduce the ad’s connection with football.

Both Kwiff and Betway were informed that their respective ads must not appear in their current form and warned against including people or characters who had a strong appeal to those under 18 years of age.

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UK enforcement action casts shade over Unibet’s net zero goals

The operator of FDJ United’s Unibet brand in the UK has been charged by the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) for social responsibility and AML licensing failures.

Platinum Gaming has received a warning, needs to pay the Commission £10m, and will have to undergo a third party audit to ensure it meets policies, procedures and controls.

Penalties and enforcement actions rarely reflect well on the companies involved, but this may be particularly bad PR for Unibet, which maintains its targets of one day achieving 0% revenue from gambling harm.

This is also the second time the London-headquartered firm, which operates FDJ’s Unibet under a white label deal as well as the bingo and online casino site UK.Bingo.com, has been hit with a regulator penalty.

The UKGC charged the firm £2.9m back in 2023, also for social responsibility and AML failures. 2022 and 2023 were particularly active years for the Commission with countless fines issued ranging from hundreds of thousands to tens of millions of British pounds.

Various operators received penalties for similar infractions during this time, with records broken via penalties against Entain and William Hill. The regulator itself has noted a slowdown in breaches in 2025, however.

“While industry wide progress has been made in reducing unchecked high spending, the failings at Platinum Gaming are particularly disappointing,” said John Pierce, Commission Director of Enforcement

“The case revealed serious shortcomings in customer interaction systems, including failures to identify and act on clear markers of harm.”

What not to do
The incidents at Platinum will be familiar to many. The Commission found cases of Unibet and/or Bingo.com customers losing ‘thousands within hours or days of registration’ without intervention, according to Pierce.

Specific examples highlighted included the customer interaction system failing to identify a player who lost £5,000 within 24 hours of registration as being at risk of harm. Another customer was not interacted with despite losing £31,000 within nine months.

On AML, the Commission determined that Platinum Gaming’s money laundering and terrorist financing risk assessment did not factor in accounts closed due to AML or counter-terrorist financing (CTF) concerns prior to 2023.

The regulator further asserted that Platinum Gaming’s AML policy lacked clarity around customer due diligence and did not consider high risk occupations, high levels of transactions and high loss levels.

“Customer reviews did not consistently consider high-risk factors, despite these being outlined in the licensee’s own framework,” said Pierce.

Not great for Net Zero
Unibet launched its 0% mission back in 2021. At the time it was part of the Kindred Group – itself having previously been called the Unibet group – alongside the 32Red online casino brand.

Both became part of French state-owned betting group La Française des Jeux (FDJ) in October 2024 when the French National Lottery operator bought Stockholm-based Kindred for €2.45bn (£2.06bn/$2.70bn). FDJ subsequently rebranded itself as FDJ United.

The net zero campaign saw Kindred and its brands commit to achieving 0% of its revenue from harmful gambling. Kindred gave quarterly updates on its net zero progress with the figure routinely hovering around 3%, though it did fall below this for the first time in Q3 2024.

Post-FDJ acquisition, Unibet and 32Red’s new owner has incorporated the net zero campaign into its own responsible gaming strategy. A regulatory penalty issued to the firm’s UK operator is not exactly a good look for this, however.

The penalty also comes at a time when FDJ United’s expansion into international betting via the Kindred takeover continues to hit hurdles, with the firm struggling to find revenue growth in Q3 while also feeling its bottom line bit by tax hikes in France and elsewhere.

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UK Gambling Commission set to redefine deposit limits for customer clarity

The UK Gambling Commission will implement a new meaning to deposit limits in 2026 to provide clarity and consistency for customers.

Online operators will be required to provide customers with the opportunity to set a deposit limit based solely on their deposit amount paid into their account over a set period of time.

The changes will be integrated in stages, coming into effect from 30 June 2026.

To avoid any sort of misunderstanding, only this form of limit may be called a “deposit limit”, meaning the current gambling support tool of the same name will have to be redefined.

Operators will also be able to offer different limits, such as loss limits or limits where withdrawals are accounted for.

The changes are being made in line with the 2023 Gambling White Paper and are a result of a consultation between March and April 2025, which examined the definition of deposit limits in the Remote Gambling and Software Technical Standards.

“Our work will help empower consumers to have greater awareness and control over their gambling,” commented Helen Rhodes, Commission Director of Major Policy Projects.

“These further changes will also bring consistency and clarity for those consumers choosing to set deposit limits, while still supporting gambling businesses to offer customer choice for different forms of limits.”

Currently, operators must offer tools to help customers set personal budgets with ease at registration or when they make their first deposit. The rules are being amended to provide customers with clarity and consistency.

With the changes being implemented in stages, operators will be required to do the following from 31 October 2025:

Prompt customers before their first deposit to set a financial limit, as well as make it easy to review and alter their limit.

Issue reminders every six months for customers to review account and transaction information, helping them maintain control of their gambling spend.

Offer financial limits using free text at an account level to help customers set meaningful limits.

Provide financial limit setting facilities via clear and accessible links on their home and deposit pages, with the number of clicks to reach these facilities minimised.

Take immediate action on all customer requests to decrease their financial limit.

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