UK Gambling Regulation Tracker for 2026 Licence Status, Operator Logbook & Every Rule Change

Under the gambling regulations in the UK, three different forms of financial or affordability-related checks are often discussed together, and only one of them asks you for documents. Which applies depends on how much you deposit and, for the newest of the three, on how old you are.

The source-of-funds check is among the oldest gambling regulations in the UK and the most demanding. It comes from anti-money-laundering law rather than the White Paper, the operator sets its own triggers, and it asks for payslips, bank statements or tax returns. The financial vulnerability check applies to anyone depositing more than £150 net over a rolling 30 days. Net deposits mean deposits minus withdrawals, not turnover.

The UKGC announced a staged rollout on 7 July 2026, but at the time of the last update, there is no confirmed start date for either stage. The Commission spent the summer of 2026 forming implementation groups with operators to work out how the checks will run in practice. It has also said it will not take enforcement action over these assessments during early implementation, so an operator that gets the mechanics wrong at first is not facing a penalty for it.

The White Paper set out a long list of measures. Most are now licence conditions with a date attached, one reform changed status in 2026, while the proposed gambling ombudsman has not been established.^[1] Financial risk assessments are the row that moved. They read as a pilot until 7 July 2026, when the UKGC replaced the pilot with a staged rollout.

When visiting an online casino site, you should always remember that a footer claim is not proof. The gambling regulations in the UK require any legitimate site to print a licence number. On the page itself a lapsed licence looks exactly like a live one. However, the register settles it, and the check takes about a minute with these easy steps:

1. Find the account number in the site’s footer, usually a short number sitting next to the words ‘licensed and regulated in Great Britain by the Gambling Commission’.
2. Search that number, or the company name, on the UK Gambling Commission public register.
3. Read the licence summary. Active means current, while Surrendered, Lapsed and Revoked all mean it has ended, and the ‘to’ date tells you when.
4. Open the domain-names tab for that account and confirm the site you are on is listed as Active.
5. Search the register for the domain itself if the licence has ended. If another company lists it as Active, the brand migrated and is still licensed. If no company does, it is not.

For example, the footer of the ibetuk.com website still states that it is owned and operated by iBet Global Limited, licensed under account number 53377, and it links to the register entry. The register shows those licences lapsed on 16 July 2026. Companies House shows iBet Global Limited was dissolved on 26 August 2025, nearly eleven months before the register caught up.

The domain is listed as Inactive, no other licensee covers it, and the site is still live and still inviting UK visitors to download its app. Every fact in that footer is real. The account number exists, the company existed, and the register entry it links to is genuine. The footer said licensed; however, the register is the one that counts.

Every date and status on this page traces back to one of the following. Where a secondary report and an official record disagree, the official record is what we publish. How we research and review is set out in how we work.

• High Stakes: gambling reform for the digital age (White Paper, April 2023) gov.uk Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The source of the levy, stake limits, affordability and ombudsman proposals.
• UKGC public register gamblingcommission.gov.uk/public-register Licence status, account numbers and end dates for every licensee. Used for all 35 rows of the licence table.
• Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice (LCCP), including upcoming and previous changes Upcoming changes The in-force dates for SR Code and RTS changes, including the 10x wagering cap and RTS 12B.
• Gambling promotions to be safer and simpler (UKGC announcement, 26 March 2025) gamblingcommission.gov.uk Primary source for the 19 January 2026 wagering cap and the mixed-product ban.
• Gambling Act 2005 legislation.gov.uk The statutory framework, including the section 116 licence-review power and the section 119 power to revoke a licence.
• Commission to introduce Financial Risk Assessments in staged approach (UKGC announcement, 7 July 2026) gamblingcommission.gov.uk Primary source for the staged rollout and the Stage 1 net-deposit thresholds.
• Taking your complaint to an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) provider gamblingcommission.gov.uk The eight-week window before a complaint can be escalated to an ADR provider.
• Online slots stake limit guidance (UKGC guidance, updated 16 June 2025) gamblingcommission.gov.uk Primary source for the £5 per spin limit from 9 April 2025 and the £2 limit for 18 to 24 year olds from 21 May 2025.
• Gambling on credit cards to be banned from April 2020 (UKGC announcement, 14 January 2020) gamblingcommission.gov.uk Primary source for the 14 April 2020 credit card ban and for the non-remote lottery exemption.
• New rules boosting safety and consumer choice (UKGC announcement, 1 May 2024) gamblingcommission.gov.uk Primary source for the financial vulnerability check thresholds of £500 from 30 August 2024 and £150 from 28 February 2025, and for the 17 January 2025 game-design ban and the 1 May 2025 marketing opt-in.
• New rules empowering consumers and boosting operator transparency (UKGC announcement, 4 February 2025) gamblingcommission.gov.uk Primary source for the 31 October 2025 deposit-limit prompt, the six-monthly review reminder and the customer-funds protection reminder.
• Gambling Commission announces package of changes which make online games safer by design (UKGC announcement, 2 February 2021) gamblingcommission.gov.uk Primary source for the autoplay ban and the 2.5-second minimum interval between game cycles, implemented by 31 October 2021.
• Online operators required to participate in GAMSTOP from March 2020 (UKGC announcement, 14 January 2020) gamblingcommission.gov.uk Primary source for mandatory GAMSTOP participation by every online operator from 31 March 2020.
• Implementation extension for new deposit limit requirements (UKGC announcement, 26 May 2026) gamblingcommission.gov.uk Primary source for the RTS 12B implementation date moving from 30 June 2026 to 30 September 2026.
• Statutory Gambling Levy (UKGC guidance) gamblingcommission.gov.uk The Commission’s own guidance on the levy, confirming it commenced on 6 April 2025 under the Gambling Levy Regulations 2025.
• LCCP condition 3.4.4, financial vulnerability check Condition 3.4.4 The licence condition text itself, setting the threshold at net deposits above £150 in a rolling 30-day period.