UK LEGAL
Defi ning fi nancial harm: do the Gambling Commission and ASA have different approaches?
Despite grappling with the question of when gambling risks causing fi nancial harm for many years, British gambling regulation has yet to provide a solid answer. Northridge Law’s Melanie Ellis unravels things…
F
or a while, the Gambling Commission treated “unaffordable” as a proxy for harm (or at least as a key indicator of harm), but it has now moved away from this with the introduction of the fi nancial vulnerability check and fi nancial risk assessment regime. It should be noted, though, that an operator would still be expected to take action if they become aware
18 AUGUST 2026
that a customer is gambling in a way that is unaffordable for them.
Under Gambling Commission rules, operators are required to check customers for “fi nancial vulnerability” if they lose £150 in a 30-day period, and (once fi nancial risk assessments come fully into force) will need to complete a more thorough check for “fi nancial risk” if they lose £1,000 in a 24-hour period or
£3,000 in a 90-day period (£750 and £2,000 respectively for customers aged under 25). The results of these checks do not tell the operator whether the customer is gambling in an unaffordable way and, in particular, they do not tell the operator whether they are suffering from gambling harm. This is not something that can be diagnosed through credit checks.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56
