What it is and what it covers
#The Gambling Commission was created by the Gambling Act 2005 and regulates commercial gambling in Great Britain: online and land-based casinos, betting, bingo, arcades and lotteries. Any operator offering gambling to consumers in Great Britain needs its licence, wherever the company itself is based.
It licenses businesses and the people running them, writes the licence conditions and codes of practice that operators must follow, and takes enforcement action, from fines to licence revocation, when they do not.
What its licence guarantees you
#The concrete protections are specific. Your age and identity must be verified before you can gamble at all. Every online licensee must participate in GAMSTOP, so one self-exclusion request covers them all. Information about a game's chances of winning, including its RTP or house edge, must be available before you commit. Since 19 January 2026, wagering requirements on bonus funds are capped at 10x.
Disputes have a defined path: complain to the operator first, then escalate to an independent alternative dispute resolution provider, free of charge, which every licensee must offer. Operators must also state how customer funds are protected if the company fails, on a disclosed low, medium or high scale.
What it does not do
#The Commission does not compensate losses, does not adjudicate every dispute itself, and its customer funds categories are a disclosure, not an insurance: at the low level, your balance is an unsecured claim if the operator goes under. It regulates Great Britain only; Northern Ireland runs under separate law.
And nothing in the licence changes the mathematics: the house edge on a licensed game is as real as anywhere else. The licence guarantees the game is what it claims to be, not that it is worth playing.
How to check a licence
#Licensed operators must display their licence status, and the Commission maintains a public register searchable by operator name. If a site claiming a GB licence does not appear there, that is the answer. An operator absent from the register is unlicensed for Great Britain, whatever its footer says.
Questions, answered
Does a Gambling Commission licence mean my money is safe?
It means the operator follows enforceable conduct rules and offers free dispute resolution. It does not insure your balance: funds protection is disclosed on a three-level scale, and at the lowest level your money is an unsecured claim if the operator becomes insolvent.
What changed in January 2026?
Wagering requirements on bonus funds were capped at a multiple of 10 for all GB licensees, following the Commission's consultation on socially responsible incentives. Offers demanding more than 10x on bonus funds are no longer permitted under a GB licence.
Can I use a foreign site instead?
Sites without a GB licence are not permitted to serve Great Britain, and playing on them means losing every protection on this page: no GAMSTOP coverage, no ADR, no funds disclosure, and no regulator to complain to.
Sources
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