UK Gambling Commission

History & Background

Licence Types

Licensing Requirements

• Operators must run identity and age verification before a customer can deposit, bet, or access gambling products — there’s no grace period allowing play before that check completes.
• Licensees must maintain formal anti-money-laundering risk assessments and controls, with real enforcement action, including fines, on record for operators that fall short.
• UKGC-licensed operators must participate in GAMSTOP, the UK’s national multi-operator self-exclusion scheme, and are working through a phased 2026 rollout of gross deposit limits and credit-reference-based financial risk checks at defined thresholds.
• Advertising to Great Britain consumers is bound by the CAP/BCAP codes and enforced by the Advertising Standards Authority, not left to each operator’s own judgement.

Player Protections

• GAMSTOP participation is mandatory for every UKGC remote licensee, letting a player self-exclude from every participating UK-licensed site in one action rather than site by site.
• A formal Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) route is required: if a complaint is unresolved after 8 weeks, the operator must refer it to an approved ADR entity, free to the customer.
• The Commission publishes regulatory actions and fines against licensees on its own public register, so an operator’s enforcement history is checkable, not just claimed.

How to Verify a Licence from UK Gambling Commission

1. 01Search the operator’s legal entity name — not just its marketing brand — on the UKGC’s public register of businesses at gamblingcommission.gov.uk, since a brand and its legal operator can differ.
2. 02Confirm which specific activity the licence covers: an operator can be authorised for remote casino without a remote betting authorisation, or vice versa.
3. 03Check the current status rather than relying on an older source, including this one — the Commission can suspend, revoke, or attach new conditions to a licence at any time.