British betting companies have been given more time to get their houses in order around deposit limits, with the deadline to implement new policies pushed back by three months.
The Gambling Commission’s latest announcement comes amid a fiery conversation around gambling affordability in the UK, with the regulator still yet to make a decision around when or whether to introduce Financial Risk Assessments (FRAs).
The regulator has stated this week that implementation day for a new set of deposit limit requirements announced last October had been moved from 30 June 2026 to 30 September 2026.
From this date, only gross deposit limits can be offered over fixed time frames. Rolling and fixed time frames can be used for other limit types.
Operators have been set three tasks from 30 September:
- Offer gross deposit limits to their customers and re-introduce gross deposit limits to customers’ available options
- Ensure gross deposit limits are called deposit limits and make sure that only these are called ‘deposit limits’
- Offer gross deposit limits with “at least equal prominence as other types of financial limit”
The Commission and the affordability agenda
Affordability was one of the biggest talking points during the review of the 2005 Gambling Act, taking place between 2020-2023. Conversations around deposit limit requirements and the notion of ‘affordability checks’ often became heated.
When the review’s White Paper was published in April 2023, the government proposal was to create Finance Risk Checks – still referred to by many as ‘affordability checks’, though the Commission prefers to avoid this term.
These checks are subdivided into Vulnerability Checks, which have been in place since February last year, and FRAs, which as mentioned above the Commission has yet to implement – with controversy around the measures and the piloting of them seeing extensive debate and even resignations in recent months.
By setting clearer requirements around deposit limits, the Commission hopes to give British consumers greater control over their finances when betting.
It may also be hoping that customers will be able to avoid running into a Vulnerability Check, and a hypothetical FRA should the measure eventually be adopted, by preemptively setting and sticking to deposit limits.
Back when the new requirements were announced last October, Helen Rhodes, the regulator’s Director of Major Policy Projects, remarked that the Commission wanted to “empower consumers to have greater awareness and control over their gambling”.