Anti-money laundering responsibilities for casino businesses
In updating this ratio, we intend to amend the definition of “gaming table” for the purposes of section 172(3) to (5) of the Gambling Act 2005 so that only tables where the apparatus is controlled or operated by casino staff count for the purposes of the ratio. These respondents would prefer to see table games as the most common activity under a casino licence, highlighting that table games are more likely to lead to breaks in play. We will give further consideration to these casinos having the option of reverting back to the existing (current) regime, as this will be a decision unavailable to 2005 Act Small casinos. In making this proposal we acknowledge some concerns from industry stakeholders about the necessity of a table gaming area requirement.
In addition, as the maximum stake on these machines is 10p, these machines are less likely to be played in an area where there are Category C machines which have a maximum stake of £1 and can often be played at different staking levels up to this maximum. They do not have any age restricted areas as they have no adult-only machines. Bacta reports that this typically includes locating the machines close to a supervisor’s booth or other more visible locations, and they state that it works well in ensuring under-18s do not access the machines. As set out in the white paper, Bacta did not include Category D ‘ticket-out’ slot-style machines within this ban. However, as set out in the white paper, there are concerns that ‘cash-out’ slot-style machines share similarities with higher stake machines, restricted for adults.
Here is a detailed breakdown of every major regulatory change affecting online casinos this year. Every legitimate UK online casino must display its UKGC licence number, typically in the website footer. Live betting and live casino sit in the same lobby, which is unusual — most operators silo them — and useful if you flit between roulette and Premier League goals in the same evening. If there are online operators servicing British residents without a proper licence from the UKGC, they are considered to be engaging in illegal activity. Arcades feature varied gaming machine types, each of which falls into a different category. The Act also mandated that operators must pay 15% of their profits obtained from UK customers back as part of their licensing agreement.
There is ongoing work in the sector to develop ways to ensure cashless gambling has safer gambling controls, which we explore further below. The legislation also requires ATMs to be positioned so that any customer who wishes to use them must stop gambling in order to do so. Cash-only gambling was assumed to give players more control over their play by providing natural interruptions in play to obtain more cash, helping players play within budget limits. We would need to do further work to ensure that robust player protections were in place to mitigate any harms, particularly taking into account the issues raised by the Gambling Commission about appropriate legislative safeguards on stake and prize levels, game speeds and the ability to set technical standards. Operators would like to be able to adapt their existing terminals to offer a wider variety of electronic casino games, using RNG technology. Casinos may use electronic terminals to offer games which are based on real events but only games based on the spin of a roulette wheel are currently available.
- The Gambling Act 2005 provided for a new concept of casino, with a small number of two types of licence created, known as Large and Small 2005 Act casinos.
- For example, the maximum annual fee for a large casino is £10,000 in England and Wales, and £7,500 in Scotland.
- However, we do not intend on changing any of the requirements placed on operators as we think that the current regulatory framework will ensure that licensing authorities and the Commission are notified when changes are proposed to premises under these circumstances.
- Many of the responses from outside of industry were strongly in favour of staff alerts but argued that they needed to be complemented by staff training so that they can intervene in a meaningful way.
In at least some of these instances, customers in this country are incidental to the main purpose of the arrangement which is often to attract customers in overseas jurisdictions to the brand. In these instances, the target market is mainly customers in Great Britain, and the licensee is leveraging the third-party’s brand to expand its appeal. It is the licensee which contracts with any customers and is responsible for providing the ‘facilities to gamble’ as set out in the 2005 Act, in spite of any branding on the website.
The Commission has a broad range of powers that enable it to regulate the industry effectively but there are some small changes that could be made around its ability to investigate operators, including improving the Commission’s responsiveness to changes of corporate control. The Gambling Commission will take a more ambitious approach to enforcement, using data from operators and more specialist staff so it can continue to improve regulation of the industry and keep pace with technological changes. A few submissions to our call for evidence highlighted the esports sector, which is growing fast and has significant appeal to children and young people, and increasingly to betting operators – with GGY from the esports betting sector growing from around £50,000 in March 2019 to over £1.5m in March 2020. Overall, indirect exposure to gambling marketing around sport is high, including among children, and can be particularly challenging for those already suffering gambling-related harms.
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There is a higher prevalence of problem gambling among people with poor health, low life satisfaction and wellbeing scores, and the problem gambling rate is higher among more deprived groups than less deprived groups. However, there are limitations to all of these sources including incomplete coverage and lack of detailed information. In particular, it found men were more likely to be experiencing problem gambling than women and that 16 to 24-year-olds had the highest average PGSI score of any age group.
The Gambling Commission’s statistics from May 2020 show that they represented 47% of total employment in the gambling sector. Technology has been developing here, and two digital apps are currently in use by parts of the sector, with operators reporting low initial take-up. Customers in retail bingo clubs tend to be slightly older than average for gambling as a whole, and they are more likely to be female. However, this does not appear to be a change in traditional bingo halls but rather driven by an increase in the high street arcades described above, which rose from 119 premises with Bingo Association membership in December 2018 to 192 in March 2023.
A consultation on measures relating to the land-based gambling sector. Online gambling operators in Great Britain face an increasingly exacting regulatory landscape. The clustering of high-stakes machines in concentrated areas will be closely monitored by the Gambling Commission, particularly where it may encourage extended play or deter supervision. 2025 marks a turning point for the UK’s land-based casino sector. Higher remote gaming duty rates, continuous expansion of safer-gambling controls, increased governance reporting, and more resources invested in illegal market disruption.
Figure 18: Problem and at-risk gambling rates according to Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI) by age and sex.
Some concerns were raised by industry about the technical feasibility of voluntary limits, particularly for Category D crane grab machines. The vast majority of respondents agreed that there should be a minimum transaction time for customers making a cashless transaction on a gaming machine. This could include looking at how customers interact with machines that accept cashless payments, how much they spend and the impact of different protections. As set out above, while chip and PIN could be used as a verification method, we would expect manufacturers and operators to adapt or make new machines that accept payments made by mobile devices which have some sort of biometric verification and meet the SCA standards.
Campaign groups and individuals with personal experience of harms
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.
As the SI sets out, all games which meet the definition of an online slots game will be subject to a maximum stake per game cycle. “game cycle” means, for an online slots game, the period beginning with the initiation of a game by the individual and ending at the point at which all money staked during the game has been lost or all money won during the game has been delivered to or made available for collection by the individual as the case may be. (2) The condition is that, for an online slots game, the total amount which an individual may stake in relation to any game cycle may not exceed— We can also assess a licensee’s ongoing suitability to hold a relevant license, particularly if there is evidence of misconduct abroad and that does include in Northern Ireland. Added link to 2026 edition of the Gambling Commission’s Money laundering and terrorist financing risk assessment. Read our guidance for information on operator LCCP requirements, including how these can be implemented in practice.
Some organisations concerned about the normalisation of gambling for children wanted to see the minimum age for all commercial gambling, including Category D machines, raised to 18. The activities with the highest participation over that period were arcade gaming machines such as penny pusher or claw grab machines (22%), placing a bet for money between friends or family (15%) and playing cards with friends or family for money (5%). Low stake Category D gaming machines have no minimum age for play, although members of the main trade association voluntarily restrict play to adults only on slot style or ‘fruit’ machines which pay out cash (see Annex C for a full breakdown of machine categories).
In addition to the obligations on operators in the Gambling Commission’s LCCP, many businesses have taken voluntary steps to go further than the minimum requirements to ensure gambling is safe for customers. The Commission has a wide range of powers to deal with operators which do not abide by their licence conditions, ranging from warnings and enhanced compliance procedures to licence reviews and formal enforcement action, including fines which are paid to the Treasury. Non-industry groups argued that the Commission needed to impose larger fines that impact operators more meaningfully or be more willing to suspend and revoke operator licences where appropriate.
With regard to casinos that currently operate with a gambling area of 1500sqm or more, these casinos will be permitted to remain open with their current gambling area. When asked about the reduction in minimum table gaming area in Small 2005 Act casinos from 500sqm to 250sqm, more respondents were in favour of this being applied than opposed. A fairly even number of respondents were for and against the 12.5% rule applying for 1968 Act casinos, whereby any table gaming area would only count towards the minimum table gaming area if it constitutes 12.5% or more of the total table gaming area in the venue. Any 1968 Act casinos that wish to remain on the existing regime will be able to do so and are not required to adjust their product offering (unless they decide to take up the opportunity to offer facilities for betting). Feedback from engagement with operators has indicated that the sliding scale as proposed would benefit the majority of casinos, with over 80% of casinos estimated to benefit depending on how floor space is reconfigured.
A report commissioned by Bacta found that in 2018 seaside arcades provided over 19,000 direct jobs, £845 million in turnover and £451 million in Gross Value Added. Encouraging all lottery and football pools operators to apply a minimum age of 18 to their products is expected to have minimal commercial impact and disruption to the existing customer base for both products since the majority of providers already apply an 18+ age limit voluntarily. Many lottery and football pools operators set a minimum age to play of 18 years and do not sell products to 16 and 17-year-olds although they are legally permitted to do so. However, those experiencing gambling problems tend to engage in many different activities, so are usually overrepresented in products with low participation rates. Furthermore, results from GREO suggest that among 16 to 24-year-olds, gambling problems are predicted by scratchcard play, but other factors such as wellbeing, mental health disorders, general health and playing other gambling games were also contributory factors. Evidence suggests National Lottery and other lottery products have similar risk profiles and rates of participation among young people.
Its goal is to reduce the prevalence of problem gambling, particularly among those who play online. GAMSTOP is a free service for all residents of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, allowing them to register online and exclude themselves from all UK gambling sites for at least six months. The remote gambling software license is mandatory for all companies that manufacture, supply, adapt, or install gaming software on the websites of UKGC licensees.
Currently, gambling treatment services and support in both countries are mainly provided through primary non gamestop casino 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.
This does not apply to a casino which was 1,500m² or larger on 12th May 2025, provided the size of that casino’s gambling area is not subsequently increased and the casino remains in the same premises. New paragraph 3 of Part 5 of Schedule 1 to the 2007 Regulations attaches additional mandatory conditions to converted casino premises licences that apply only if the holder decides to exercise the extended entitlement. The mandatory conditions vary depending on whether the holder of the licence has decided to exercise the extended entitlement, and if not, whether the floor area of the gambling area in the casino is 200m² or more. Paragraph (3) of regulation 4 of these Regulations amends the mandatory conditions attaching to converted casino premises licences in Part 5 of Schedule 1 to the 2007 Regulations. By paragraph (2) of regulation 4, the minimum size of the table gaming area in small casinos licensed under the Act is reduced from 500m² to 250m².
We will also permit casinos of all sizes to offer sports betting in addition to other gambling activities and will take steps to reallocate unused 2005 Act casino licences to other local authorities. We will allow smaller casinos to benefit from more machines on a pro rata basis commensurate with their size and non-gambling space, subject to the same table to machine ratios and other conditions. The 2005 Act sets out a range of restrictions for land-based gambling based on the assumption that restrictions on supply (for example casino numbers and gaming machine availability) are an important protection.
How much funding do you estimate is needed for administration and the enforcement of licences annually? If you are a local authority/ licensing board, do you currently charge the maximum fees as set out in the Gambling Act 2005? However, given the relatively low level of annual fees per premises at present, we consider this to be unlikely.