UK LEGAL
Commission officers querying what affordability checks had been conducted in relation to the customer accounts being assessed. Despite the Commission now stating that it does not have any regulatory requirements for affordability checks, operators have consistently been criticised for not having such checks in their policies and procedures. By around 2021, almost all operators had added affordability assessments to their procedures to avoid being accused of “failings” and were just awaiting the outcome of the Commission’s consultation on what the thresholds for such checks should be. Clearly something has changed (of course during this time period we have had the Government’s White Paper and a change of leadership at the Commission), but the regulator has never formally retracted its previous assertions that affordability checks need to be conducted. Arguably this should have been done in August 2024, when financial vulnerability checks were introduced alongside the Betting and Gaming Council’s voluntary code of practice for risk assessments (a stop-gap until completion of the Commission’s financial risk assessments pilot).
insignificant differences in the data received from different credit reference agencies, and have struggled to understand why this might be the case. Clearly, it is essential that consistent data is received by operators, in order for decisions about customer action to be made in a consistent way. Exploring these inconsistencies will form the next part of the Commission’s work, along with “exploring options to focus identification through financial risk assessments of the most severe financial difficulties”.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR AFFORDABILITY CHECKS? One interesting statement in the Commission’s announcement is that “the Commission does not have any regulatory requirements for affordability checks and is not proposing any”. Whilst this idea has been soft launched by the Commission over the past year or so, it is in stark contrast to past comments by the regulator and the experience of operators going through compliance assessments in around a five-year period from 2019 to 2024. So, what made operators think they needed to conduct affordability checks all this time? In its 2019/2020 enforcement report, the Commission noted that “individuals have funded their gambling without satisfactory affordability checks” and “Customers wishing to spend more than the national average should be asked to provide information to support a
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higher affordability trigger such as three months’ payslips, P60s, tax returns or bank statements”.
That this was being applied in practice is demonstrated in published regulatory action, for example in a public statement regarding BGO Entertainment, published in October 2020 (but no longer available on the Commission’s website), the Commission criticised the operator for failing “to take into account the Commissions guidance regarding responsible gambling and affordability”. In the same statement, the Commission recommended to other licensees that they ensure their Responsible Gambling Policy “includes a customer’s affordability”.
Transcripts of compliance assessments are not publicly available, but during the past few years many operators have experienced
This is not to say that operators are now expected to ignore whether their customers’ gambling is affordable. Evidence that a customer is gambling in a way that is unaffordable for them would be an indicator of possible gambling- related harm, and the gambling operator would still be expected to interact with that customer and take appropriate action if necessary to minimise the risk of harm, under SRCP 3.4.3. It is worth noting that this evidence may be obtained by the operator as part of its AML checks, for example bank statements and payslips obtained as part of source of funds investigations are likely to mean the operator has a good idea of what a level of gambling that would be unaffordable / unsustainable for that customer.
WHAT’S NEXT?
Before financial risk assessments can go live, the Commission has further work to do analysing data from stage 3 of the pilot, as well as addressing the issue of inconsistent data received from different credit reference agencies. A further update seems likely in the early Autumn, with the possibility that checks will go live in early 2026.
Melanie is a gambling regulatory lawyer with 13 years’ experience in the sector. Melanie advises on all aspects of gambling law including licence applications, compliance, advertising, licence reviews and changes of control. She has acted for a wide range of gambling operators including major online and land-based bookmakers and casinos, B2B game and software suppliers and start-ups. She also frequently advises operators of raffles, prize competitions, free draws and social gaming products. Melanie has a particular interest in the use of new technology for gambling products and novel product ideas.
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