The UK gambling industry continues to flourish, particularly online. However, there is stricter regulation being introduced, and the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) continues to be strict towards those sites they have licensed.
Recent months have seen stricter affordability checks being imposed on UK gamblers. These are aimed at proving that players can afford the amounts they are depositing and possibly losing. Such checks are not at all popular with gamblers, especially if, in their view, gambling harm is not being suffered.
More Regulation
The UK gambling industry is concerned that this is causing more players to leave the licensed and regulated market. Instead, they opt to gamble on the unlicensed and unregulated market. This costs the licensed companies revenue and sees players reduced to lower levels of customer protection.
Figures released by the UKGC showed that the online gross gambling yield of licensed UK online sites for the first three months of 2025 was £1.45 billion. That total was 7% higher than the figure recorded in January-March 2024.
While those are impressive figures, there are concerns about the amounts being gambled on the unlicensed black market. The Betting and Gaming Council predicted that this year’s Grand National would see £9.4 million bet on the race with black market operators.
Black Market Operators
This takes money away from the companies that are licensed to operate in the UK. With stricter regulation such as affordability checks and reduced maximum stakes for online slot games, the fear is that more players will leave the regulated market and hit company finances.
Many overseas companies have joined the UK gambling industry. However, this year has seen the departure from the UK market of TGP Europe. They have 31 online casinos, and the list includes Stake, BCGame and Duelbits – among the latest new gambling sites as per gamblermedia.com.
TGP Europe decided to leave the UK market as they had been ordered by the UKGC to pay a £3.3 million penalty and improve their standards. They had also been fined last year but further action was taken due to several failings including anti-money laundering.
The Head of Enforcement at the UKGC is John Pierce. He commented that TGP Europe had been “unwilling or unable to meet the regulatory standards we expect from our licensees.” The departure of TGP Europe is causing problems for several English football clubs. Everton, Leicester City, Bournemouth, Fulham, Newcastle, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Burnley are all sponsored by betting companies that are operated by TGP Europe.
The UKGC have had to contact the clubs to inform them that their deals are with a company that is no longer licensed to operate in the UK. They have asked them to prove that proper research and due diligence were carried out before the sponsorship deals were signed.
Pierce said of the situation that the UKGC has made it clear that they will be “carrying out checks, without further notice, to ensure these sites remain blocked.” The clubs have a responsibility to check that customers aren’t using VPNs to access the geoblocked site.
He stressed that it is “essential” that football clubs “play their part in protecting fans and GB consumers” who may still receive information from the now unlicensed sites. One of the problems is that the TGP Europe unlicensed sites “may not provide protection against criminality or gambling harm.”
Spreadex Affected
Another company that has had problems with the UKGC is the online site Spreadex. They have become the latest company to be fined by the UKGC. A total of £2 million must be paid after a UKGC compliance assessment identified social responsibility and anti-money laundering failings between September 2022 and November 2023.
This is the latest in a series of fines that have been issued by the UKGC. The assessment found that Spreadex did not request proper evidence from some customers and relied on self-declared financial information they received.
One of their customers made deposits totalling £64,000 over a short period of time. No source of funds checks were made by Spreadex, and in just one month, the customer lost £50,000. The UKGC also found that when repeated customer checks took place, Spreadex did not escalate its level.
Another customer reached their daily deposit cap of £3,300 twelve times in a fortnight. Only four automated messages were sent out by Spreadex, none involving any personal contact.
Overview
2022 also saw Spreadex in trouble with the UKGC. On that occasion, a £1.4 million regulatory settlement had to be paid when problems similar to those recently found took place. Spreadex now needs to commission a third-party audit to examine its policies regarding anti-money laundering and safer gambling procedures. The future is likely to see the UKGC continue to be strict and that is likely to cause problems for the industry.
