UK Government publishes long-awaited gambling review laying out tighter rules on iGaming

After a long-awaited review, the UK is set to tighten its rules on online gambling, including a 1% levy on industry revenue, affordability checks and slot machine stake limits. The proposals have finally been published by the government in an effort to update iGaming regulations for the mobile era.

After multiple delays and several leadership changes within the UK government, the Department for Culture, Media and Sports (DCMS) has now published its White Paper laying out its blueprint for regulating the modern gambling industry.

Lucy Frazer, the culture secretary, told the House of Commons that gambling could wreck lives and ministers were “bringing our pre-smartphone regulations into the present day with a gambling white paper for the digital age,” reports The Guardian.

The proposals brought forward include:

• A 1% mandatory levy on industry revenues.
• Tougher affordability checks to prevent huge losses.
• Online slot machine stakes capped at between £2 and £15.
• Curbing “free spin” and “bonus” offers.
• Measures to slow down online casino games.
• More resources for the Gambling Commission.
• Plans for a gambling ombudsman.

Under the plan, any person losing more than £125 a day will face checks on whether they have declared bankruptcy or have any county court judgments against them. For gamblers with steeper losses of £1,000 or more a day, they will face open banking checks that assess their income.

However, the process has not yet reached the finish line: nearly all of the measures will go out for further consultation, implying further delay to a review that began in late 2020 with the aim to update the 2005 Gambling Act passed by the Blair government.

The update comes as iGaming keeps gaining a larger footprint within the gambling sector, now accounting for the majority of the £11 billion ($13.7 billion) that the industry generates from British punters yearly.

While Frazer noted many people enjoy gambling without any ill effects, she said the industry is “unrecognizable” when compared with the pre-smartphone age and that addicts were suffering extreme harm. Broader concerns about addicts, vulnerable people and children have triggered growing calls for ministers to crack down on gambling.

Aside from tackling iGaming, the government also plans to strengthen pub licensing laws to prevent children from playing slot machines with cash prizes in pubs, and to legislate to ban all lotteries from offering tickets to under-18s, reports BBC. "Although we recently raised the age limit for the National Lottery to 18, other lottery and football pools products are still legally permitted from age 16," the White Paper noted.

The White Paper publication was hailed as a “momentous day” by Labour’s Carolyn Harris, who co-chairs a cross-party group of MPs examining gambling harms. “Commitments now need to be fulfilled, it is not time for yet more consultation but swift and immediate action,” she said. “We will be holding the government's feet to the fire.”

As for the industry’s reaction to the update, Entain and Flutter, two of the world's largest gambling companies, both welcomed the proposals. For their part, the Premier League this month said its clubs had collectively agreed to stop featuring gambling sponsorship on the front of soccer kits from the 2026-27 season.

According to the UK Gambling Commission, about 0.3% of British adults were problem gamblers at the end of 2021, but a survey by polling company YouGov put the figure at 2.8%, or almost 1.4 million people.

See the full UK gambling White Paper here.