The United Kingdom’s gambling laws are finalized through Parliament and regulated by the UK Gambling Commission which oversees all commercial gaming and the National Lottery. The UK’s second gambling regulator is the Financial Conduct Authority which manages spread betting while other forms of sports gambling are regulated by the UKGC. This page will detail how three important gambling laws function in the UK including how they came to be and their role as key legislation.

The United Kingdom Gambling Commission was set up under the Gambling Act 2005 to regulate commercial gambling in Great Britain. The UK market statistically is the biggest gambling market in Europe, which makes it exceptionally attractive and competitive at the same time. The United Kingdom Gambling Commission (UKGC) entered the online gambling market as a significant regulator entity during 2014. Previous to this the UKGC were primarily responsible for the management and regulation of the offline gambling market within the UK. When the UK government decided to tax online operators for any activity generated. United Kingdom Gambling Commission Online gambling in the United Kingdom has been set up and regulated with one of the best systems that you can find anywhere in the world. While they’ve more or less always permitted online gambling to happen in various forms, they didn’t have a very strict licensing and regulatory system until 2014. The United Kingdom Gambling Commission ensures that all the operators and software providers are licensed after they adhere to strict regulations and standards as defined by the Gambling Commission. In case a player wants to launch a complaint against a particular operator, he/she can go to the Complaints Authority hence no discrimination.

The National Lottery Act

Prior to 1993, lotteries in the UK were mainly permitted to raise funds for societal causes and benefits. However, in 1993 the National Lottery Act was passed and ordered to be regulated by the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC). The National Lottery Act has undergone several amendment changes which have even allowed smaller more localized lotteries to be conducted without a license given by the UKGC but these lotteries still need to be registered with local authorities. This means this UK gambling law is in charge of all lottery activities within the United Kingdom and how they are governed.

UK Gambling Act of 2005

In 2005, the UK introduced and legalized its first Gambling Act. This Act became the benchmark for legal gambling operations in the region. This UK gambling law lists provisions and rules for a casino, poker, and betting operations, as well as, skill games, social games, lottery betting, and betting pools. The Gambling Act of 2005 essentially became the framework for gambling regulation in the UK. Out of this law, the UKGC was established and ordered to consolidate regulatory powers over all UK online casinos and physical gaming including lotteries, as mentioned above.

UK Gambling Act of 2014

In 2014, the United Kingdom legalized another Gambling Act better known as the Licensing and Advertising Gambling Act of 2014. This gambling legislation was specifically presented to amend loopholes and grey areas within the first Gambling Act passed in 2005. The Gambling Act of 2014 essentially forced all offshore gambling operators to obtain a license from the UKGC if they planned to legally provide gambling services to UK residents.

Before this legislation, offshore operators who kept their servers, equipment, and/or facilities offshore were exempt from applying for a UK gambling license and thus curtailed the regulatory enforcement of the UKGC. Under the Gambling Act 2014, operators, no matter of their location and base offshore, must retain a UK gambling license to offer UK players gaming services, as well as, requiring a 15% tax on their profits as part of their licensing agreement with the UKGC.

United Kingdom Gambling Commission Official

How Do These Laws Affect Online Gambling in the United Kingdom?

No United Kingdom gambling law makes it illegal to gamble at licensed offshore online casinos, rather UK gambling laws just add some requirements for operators to be considered legitimate and legal whether or not they are located offshore. Online gambling such as online UK casinos, online poker rooms, online sportsbooks, and online bingo are legal in the UK if operators possess a license from the UKGC according to laws set in place by the Gambling Act of 2014. The online casinos in our UK casino guide are all legal and legitimate sources for online gambling in the United Kingdom.

By conducting a thorough survey of the gambling scene, the UKGC has reached a conclusion that around 24 million adults in the UK gamble and approximately 50% of them do it online.

According to the data from the UK Finance, 800,000 players use credit cards to gamble. In a further independent study conducted in March 2019 that involved 2,000 players, the UKGC has concluded that around 22% of the ones using credit cards for gambling fall under the category of problem gamblers.

The findings have prompted the Commission to react. The UKGC has announced all online and land-based gambling businesses are to abort the acceptance of payments via credit cards starting April 14, 2020.

Furthermore, by March 31, all online gambling operators will be required to participate in the multi-operator self-exclusion scheme GAMSTOP and make exclusion much simpler for the ones who wish to be prevented from gambling online.

Why Are Credit Card Payments an Issue?

According to the previously mentioned research, almost one fifth of all players with a gambling issue are using credit cards to power their compulsive gambling. The UKGC concludes that the main reason for choosing credit cards is their convenience. They are widely accepted and easy to use.

However, this might lead to financial problems. Playing with money players do not actually have leads to accumulated debt on credit cards, frequently amounting to tens of thousands of pounds.

There was also overwhelming evidence that the use of credit cards in combination with the fees charged by credit card operators made the situation even worse since players would chase the losses and ultimately end up with even more debt.

Not even the recent proposals by the Government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport for changes in the betting limits of B2 gaming machines, also known as Fixed-Odds Betting Terminals (FOBTs), did the trick.

The changes suggest introducing a mandatory £2 maximum stake instead of the previous £100, which is a substantial decrease. Regardless of that, the changes do not seem to deter players from gambling their life savings using credit cards.

Are Any Forms of Gambling Excluded from the Credit Card Ban?

The ban will cover all forms of online and land-based gambling except for non-remote society lottery or raffles and non-remote ELM license holders who can arrange the lottery draws on behalf of these societies.

The non-remote lotteries, the National Lottery, and scratch card can also be bought at supermarkets, kiosks, and newsagents, and the UKGC argues that it would be impossible to further burden the retailers by forcing them to identify transactions with credit cards and stop them.

Since the sale of lottery tickets is a part of their ancillary revenue strategy and not the principal source, it could significantly disrupt the business flow since the customers would be able to pay for other goods with credit cards but not the lottery tickets.

Also, lottery-based games and society lotteries for charitable and non-commercial purposes account for less than 1% of all gambling-related problems. Moreover, the National Lottery does not accept credit cards for online payments, so their business practice is already in compliance with the rules.

How Will the Credit Card Ban Work?

Lottery operators and all other online gambling operators will no longer accept and process remote payments via credit cards regardless of the way these remote payments are concluded, i.e. via a website, app, payment over email, phone, text message, or any other form.

Ohio Gambling Commission

Neither new nor existing customers will be able to make credit card payments and subscriptions after April 14, nor will the operators process them.

State Gambling Commission

Operators will have to work closely with payment processors and banks to identify credit cards through their identification numbers (the first six numbers on the card) and thus discern if they are debit or credit cards. It would be possible for some operators to install the ban on the payment gateway themselves, without the help of the payment processor.

Payments made via e-wallets are also subject to the ban. All e-wallets will need to stop processing payments to operators that have been funded via credit cards.

Conclusion

The UKGC and the government are tackling problem gambling with great determination. The additional £100 million funding boost into the special NHS programmes combating problem gambling shows their intention of nipping the problem in the bud.

However, people who are not experiencing any gambling problems might face some inconveniences since the credit card ban might disrupt the usually smooth payment processes and affect gaming operators’ revenue.

It remains to be seen how salubrious the credit card ban will be. Hopefully, gaming operators will have enough time to make the necessary provisions and protect the players from harmful consequences of careless gambling.