UK Gambling Commission Launches Consultation on Mandatory Affordability Checks for Online Betting Operators

22 September 2026

The Gambling Commission wants mandatory financial checks on high-spending online gamblers, in order to catch and support those whose play has put them into debt.

As they now stand, the proposal centres on staged checks on customers who, within 30 days, have deposited a net £500 or £150. £500 is the threshold on deposit in October 2024, with the trigger then falling to £150 the next February. The risk assessments would start out using only public data, but the Commission has also begun a pilot on credit reference data to those customers.

Commission Consulting on Cash Scrutiny

The Gambling Commission last year brought in affordability guidance for remote gaming, sales and betting licensees—mandating "frequent and in-depth assessments before giving a customer with net losses of £500 within 30 days or £2,000 in a year a chance to bet large again."

Now, it has proposed mandatory financial vulnerability checks at various spend levels, to catch problem gambling early. The use of public, not credit reference, data at the start is motivated by its "preferencing the term 'financial risk checks' rather than 'affordability' or 'financial vulnerability' checks."

The base coding for the checks was published for consultation by the Commission in September 2024. This highlighted the three types of risk the Commission wants to target through the checks: significant unaffordable losses over time, financially vulnerable customers, and binge gambling.

Phase In, From £500 to £150

The stages would be these:

New remote customers making net deposits of at least £500 in 30 days, no later than the end of August 2024.

New remote customers making net deposits of at least £150 in 30 days, no later than the end of February 2025.

The Commission had floated the idea of lower spend thresholds for 18- to 24-year-olds, but it is not acting on them. Its proposed triggers are £125 net loss within 30 days, or £500 within 365, as a moderate-spend development.

The checks, in concept at least, are pointed at preventing the commission's three showstoppers: binge gambling, significant unaffordable losses over time, and financially vulnerable customers.

The checks would start by looking for whether a player is insolvent, subject to an insolvency process, in an individual voluntary arrangement (IVA), or subject to a debt relief order (DRO). An insolvency check flagged the latter.

The insolvency checks are based on Litigation Futures' litigantinperson.net, sourced to Tribunal Service and Insolvency Service open databases. The register takes in connected insolvencies through formal recognition of foreign insolvency proceedings.

For insolvency and DROs to make it onto the tier-1 data feed, they need to be flagged specifically as "personal"; and it will need to be a UK court registering them, not a foreign one.

The litigants-in-person data feed is updated by the court every 48 hours, so the operators can work on the assumption it is accurate as of four days ago.

That said, the Commission's guidance makes it clear the onus is here on the operator, not the affiliate.

"Operators must be accountable for decisions made by their network representatives and should be aware of what data they have access to, and how it is used, when making decisions about dealing with their customers," it says.

So, if flagged an affiliate feeding data on insolvencies just to the booking operator so an operator couldn't alert a casino, the Commission would blame the operator for ignoring insolvency data on its books.

Operators then using this database would get automated access via the Commission's central hub, "GamCare", as of last October.

Plymouth Opens Pilot of Credit Checks

At the same time, relaxation of data-grabbing restrictions may be within reach for the operators. The Commission announced at its October meeting it is piloting "frictionless financial risk assessments" based on credit reference data.

The pilot is looking at location, spend, customer spend thresholds and data usage, with reports to come later in the year.

"When this is not later in the year, I will translate that to months for you...now, only a goose can tell you what month this is."

It was also a news conference.

"There is a point in this that I would like to make more strategic noise, if you allow me, and say that this pilot is part of a phased and evidence-led approach to implementing advisable financial risk checks." He didn't make that point. He was too late to avoid the carryover.

Commission Cites Three Responsible-Gamble Risks

The Commission’s consultation materials describe proposed affordability assessments at thresholds set by the Commission, with questions focused on the thresholds, the nature of the assessments, and the actions operators should take after an assessment.

The Gambling Act Review white paper published in April 2025 laid out two potential models, depending on the customer's spend. The first is a background check for those who incur a £125 or £500 net loss within the last 30 or 365 days, respectively.

For those who lose £1,000 within 24 hours, or £2,000 over 90 days, though, the white paper asked for what it called an "enhanced check" on the customer. This proposed enhanced-check trigger was £1,000 net loss within 24 hours or £2,000 within 90 days, and that the trigger was "lower for people aged 18 to 24."

How much more complicated the checks might be is not specified, but from talk elsewhere in the Commission's portfolio, it could be much. Indeed, a full commission inquiry into profits from the gambling industry in 2017 called on the NAO to examine the Commission's monitoring of operators' safety and fairness assessments—calling attention to the case studies given in the report.

The pilot is something of a precursor, then, to the work needed in this gap.The Commission says the financial risk assessments are intended to identify high-spending remote gambling customers who may be in financial difficulties.

As an example of what the Commission is targeting, it lists a high-spending customer who has a large number of unaffordable losses over a short period, a customer who regularly has large unaffordable losses that significantly exceed their income, and a customer who has a disproportionate loss of income compared to their current financial situation.

The checks would start out with publicly available, not credit reference, data, to tilt in favour of more definable vulnerabilities, rather than priorities directly taken from authorities such as credit reference agencies.

What's Left For Industry, Now

So, as the new checks roll out in full force, the industry's next period of comfortable escape is till August 2024, when a new £500 tier IV check will be introduced, with committing a customer in 30 days.

Then, with its £150 net deposit threshold rollout a mere February 2025—which is about 24 months after the new checks begin—the proposal could crimp even the FITDs, which won't be cool at all.