2025 has been a year in which stricter regulation of the UK online casino industry has taken place. December will see new rules come into place regarding the bonuses that are offered by all gambling sites: both old and new casinos. Why are they being introduced and how will they change the industry?
The UK online casino market is a very competitive one. The many sites are continually attempting to improve their market share. Bonuses and other offers play a key role in achieving this. However, they have been criticised for often having terms and conditions that are simply too complex to understand and make withdrawing any funds difficult.
The types of bonuses that are offered by online casinos include matched deposits and free spins on slot games. The latter have also been targeted this year with new maximum stake limits placed on them in an attempt to reduce gambling harm.
It is not the case that a bonus amount can instantly be withdrawn. If for example a player wins some money from the free spins they have received, a wagering requirement must be met. This can be a very high figure, say 30x.
This means the bonus money must be wagered 30 times before a withdrawal can be made. It may well be therefore that the whole bonus may be lost or a great part of it. The terms and conditions may also be complex and see different kinds of games make a different contribution to the wagering requirement. For example, playing certain slot games might only see £0.25 of a £1 spent go towards meeting the wagering requirement.
It’s not just the complexity of bonuses and their wagering requirements that have been criticised. Critics believe that the bonuses encourage players to gamble. They are enticed to join a site after seeing the many gambling advertisements associated with the betting sites. Players who are already site members but are having problems with their gambling may be tempted to continue playing when the latest bonus is offered to them.
Action is now being taken and the UK Gambling Commission has confirmed that a number of reforms will come into place on December 19. Wagering requirements will not be allowed to be higher than 10x. There will also be a ban on ‘mixed-product’ bonuses, a move that campaigners have long called for.
These see players being required to gamble on several products such as betting on sport and playing online slot games. There will also be revised wordings in the Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice (LCCP) in an attempt to make the bonuses less complicated. The latter will come into force from January 19, 2026.
The new rules will only apply to those online casinos that have been granted a licence to operate by the UKGC. Those sites that are unlicensed will not have to adhere to the new rules. They will still be able to offer bonuses that may well have high wagering requirements and terms and conditions that are far too complex.
The changes regarding bonuses is not the only bad news that the UK online casino industry has had to contend with. The Autumn Budget held on November 26 contained the news that companies had feared.
From April 2026, remote gaming duty for online casinos will be increased from its current 21% to 40%. The following April will also see a 10% increase in the tax on online sports betting excluding horse racing. The tax rate on in-person gambling will remain unchanged so that will allay fears of High Street bookmakers on the Isle of Wight.
Flutter Entertainment have said that the tax increases will hit their profits. The group which owns gambling companies such as Paddy Power, Betfair, PokerStars and Sky Betting & Gaming have estimated that the adjusted EBITDA impact of the tax increases, before mitigation, will be around $320 million in the 2026 financial year and $540 million for the following year.
Their hope is that cutting costs such as cutting down the amount spent on promoting their product and making market share gains may offset some of the problems the tax increase will create.
Kevin Harrington is the UK and Ireland chief executive for Flutter. Speaking about the Autumn Budget, he said that the tax increases “are a very disappointing outcome and will have a significant adverse impact on our industry.”
One of the reasons given for the increase is to deal with the problem of gambling harm. While Mr Harrington believes the government “rightly wants to address harm,” the changes made will “hand a big win to illegal unlicensed gambling operators who will become more competitive overnight. These black market operators don’t pay tax and don’t invest in safer gambling.”
With a mandatory levy also now having to be paid by licensed UK online casinos, it may be that companies look to concentrate more heavily on overseas markets, though stricter regulation is becoming more widespread.
