UK gambling ombudsman? How IBAS disputes work

There is no gambling ombudsman in Britain. If a company licensed by the Gambling Commission won't settle your complaint, you take it to the independent dispute service named in its terms. For six of the seven UK-licensed operators we track, IBAS, the Independent Betting Adjudication Service, has an online entry in its directory. IBAS is free to you and sets deadlines on both sides. For disputes of up to £10,000, its ruling binds the operator if you accept it. Our complaints and ADR hub shows the same route under other regulators.081101

We read IBAS's terms of use and adjudication procedures, its consumer pages, its operator directory and its two latest reports on 15 October 2026. On the same day we read the Gambling Commission's guidance on complaints and its list of approved dispute services, the government's 2023 gambling white paper, eCOGRA's dispute report dated 15 October 2025 and Midnite's terms. We haven't taken a case to IBAS, and this isn't a review of it.

Is there a gambling ombudsman in the UK?

No. The government's gambling white paper of 27 April 2023 said it expected an ombudsman for complaints about social responsibility or gambling harm "to be established and ruling on social responsibility complaints within a year". IBAS's annual report for 2025 says of that recommendation: "Nearly three years on there has been no progress towards this goal."1610

What Britain has instead is alternative dispute resolution (ADR). The Gambling Commission's list of approved ADR providers names eight: ADR Group, Pegasus ADR Service, Blexr Limited, the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR), eCOGRA, IBAS, ProMediate and the Tattersalls Committee. None of them is an ombudsman. The white paper explains that "Ombudsman" is a protected term in the UK, and that in 2023 IBAS and CEDR were "complaint handler" members of the Ombudsman Association rather than full ombudsman members.1116

The gap matters for one kind of complaint. ADR providers decide disputes about bets, games and accounts. They don't decide whether a bookmaker or casino let you gamble more than you could afford. IBAS's annual report says it turned away 415 formal requests in 2025 because they concerned social responsibility, and that 284 of them were claims of unaffordable gambling.10

What IBAS is

IBAS was launched in 1998 by Trinity Mirror, then the publisher of the Sporting Life, as the Independent Betting Arbitration Service. Its terms, in force since 1 July 2025, name it the Independent Betting Adjudication Service Limited, company number 04826792, and say it is approved by the Gambling Commission under the ADR regulations of 2015. Operators pay for it through annual registration fees. On 15 October 2026 its operator directory held 1,294 entries, from online bookmakers to betting shops, casinos, bingo halls and charity lotteries.060108

By its own count, IBAS received 79,585 requests for adjudication from 1998 to 2022, and £6,936,648 was paid to consumers over those years. Those are the totals its history page prints; the page's own yearly rows add up to more, 89,799 requests and £7,708,267. Its 2025 annual report adds that it has received approval from the Curaçao Gaming Authority to act as a dispute service for companies licensed there.0610

The deadlines, step by step

The Gambling Commission pages we read give the operator eight weeks but set no deadline for raising the complaint with the operator in the first place. That deadline comes from the operator's own terms, so check yours before you wait.121419

Your own speed counts too. If you need more than 28 days to answer a request for information, IBAS will consider pausing the case where you'd otherwise lose a fair hearing. If you don't respond after more than two attempts to contact you, it may stop investigating.01

Where IBAS's own pages disagree

Two deadlines read differently depending on which IBAS page you open:

• Appeals. The consumer FAQ says you can appeal "within 40 days of getting the decision". The appeals page says notice of an intention to appeal must come within 10 days and the formal appeal within 20 days, "or the case will be closed and the original decision applied". The terms of use allow a review only "in exceptional circumstances" and only if the appeal arrives within 20 days.

• The one-year limit. The FAQ lists, as a reason IBAS may not adjudicate, that "it has been more than a year since you last tried to resolve the disagreement". The terms count 12 months "from the date upon which the Operator has given notice to the Customer that it is unable to resolve the Dispute", unless there were exceptional circumstances.

The terms are the document you agree to when you submit a dispute: "By submitting a Dispute for adjudication each Customer agrees to be bound by, and to comply with, these Terms of Use." Work to the shortest window: tell IBAS within 10 days that you intend to appeal.0103

Is an IBAS ruling binding?

On the operator, yes, if you accept it and the dispute is worth £10,000 or less. The terms say IBAS rulings "shall be legally non-binding on the Consumer but binding on the Operator if accepted by the Customer, unless the value of the dispute exceeds £10,000". The Commission's guidance to operators sets the same line: it expects ADR "which is binding (if accepted by the customer)" for disputes of up to £10,000. On you, no. If you don't accept the ruling, you can still go to court.0113

The Commission's own entry for IBAS says "The outcome is non-binding." Read from your side, that matches the terms. Once you accept a resolution, though, it binds you too: Midnite's terms say a resolution "agreed by you and arrived at with the assistance of IBAS will be binding on both you and us".1119

IBAS's FAQ says that "in 99% of our cases, customers receive their agreed settlement", and that it removes from its list any company that doesn't follow its decision, unless an appeal or a court changes that decision. Its statistical report records 100% compliance with decisions in consumers' favour in both of its last two years, on two assumptions it states: that rulings from the past 28 days have been complied with, and that consumers would tell it if a decision wasn't acted on.0209

What IBAS will and won't look at

IBAS considers "any dispute about a bet, game or any other gambling transaction which you consider to have been handled unfairly". It checks whether the transaction followed the operator's rules, whether those rules are fair, and whether you're owed more than you've been offered.04

It doesn't take:

• Claims that you were allowed to gamble irresponsibly, unless there's a contractual element, such as a broken agreement between you and the company.

• Self-exclusion that didn't work. These go to the Gambling Commission. Our guide to self-exclusion and account closure covers the schemes themselves.

• Customer service complaints, including about premises and websites.

• Fixing, cheating or games run unfairly. These go to the regulator.

• Gambling by under-18s.

• Bets refused or accounts restricted or closed before a bet. If previously accepted bets were later cancelled when your account was closed, that does fall within its remit.

For anything on that list, the Gambling Commission is the place for a regulatory complaint. It won't settle your dispute: it says it does "not resolve or make decisions on complaints regarding gambling-related transactions", and IBAS adds that the Commission never makes "financial awards to customers". IBAS advises you to say clearly that you're making a regulatory complaint, "otherwise you may be referred back to IBAS".1404

What it costs

Nothing for you. IBAS's terms say the process is "free of charge to all Customers", but both sides pay their own costs. If it finds for you, IBAS "may consider reimbursement by the Operator" of your expenses. You can have someone represent you, though IBAS says it doesn't recommend paying anyone for this.0102

Online operators pay a yearly fee set by how many disputes IBAS received from their customers in the previous calendar year; betting shops and casino venues pay a flat fee per outlet or venue. The 2026 bands for online operators run from £545 for 0–1 disputes to £175,000 for more than 350. IBAS's own example: an operator whose customers brought 55 disputes in 2025 pays £28,250 for 2026. Only disputes that have been through the operator's complaints process count towards the fee.07

What IBAS's own figures show

IBAS's statistical report for 1 October 2024 to 30 September 2025 gives these figures:09

• Received: 3,721 disputes, up from 3,223 the year before.

• Completed: 1,495 (40%). The other 2,226 were rejected or discontinued.

• Most common reason for rejection: the operator's complaints process hadn't finished, 1,073 times. A further 415 were regulatory matters, 248 concerned operators registered with another ADR provider, and 22 were outside the 12-month limit.

• Outcomes of the 1,495 completed: 737 ended in a settlement or an operator concession before a ruling, 65 were upheld by written decision, and 693 weren't upheld. IBAS puts the share of consumers who got a satisfactory outcome at 54%.

• Time: 20 days on average from a complete case file to a published ruling. That excludes the time spent gathering evidence; operators took 9 days on average to send complete information. The FAQ's estimate for a whole case is "8-10 weeks".

• What the disputes were about: disputed bet or game settlement 1,348, customer ID 700, unaffordable gambling 284. Most claimants, 2,888, asked for payment of winnings or a balance.

Our arithmetic on those figures: a written ruling in the consumer's favour came in 4.3% of completed cases, and settlements and upheld rulings together make 53.6%. Most good outcomes for players came earlier, when the operator settled or conceded once IBAS was involved.09

eCOGRA, another approved provider, reports on the same 12 months:17

The two reports don't define time or outcome the same way, so the rows aren't a ranking. Our eCOGRA guide explains how its service works.0917

Which UK operators we track use IBAS

BullsRank tracks seven operators whose sites the Gambling Commission's register lists under an active licence (register read 21 September 2026). We compared them with IBAS's operator directory and with the list of sites in eCOGRA's dispute form, both read on 15 October 2026:0818

Four of the seven appear on both lists, William Hill under slightly different names on eCOGRA's. The Commission lets an operator use more than one provider, but "you must tell customers which is the relevant one for their dispute". In 2024–25 IBAS rejected 248 requests because the operator was registered with another provider, so check the terms before you file.1309

We could read only one of the seven sets of terms on 15 October 2026. Midnite's section 24.4 names IBAS. For the other six, our reader didn't get the text of the terms that day: the pages were blocked, missing or loaded without it. A name in a directory gives no licence number, so it doesn't prove which site or licence an entry covers.1908

How to take a dispute to IBAS

1. Finish the operator's complaints process and keep its final reply. The Commission calls it a deadlock letter; IBAS may ask for a "referral code" or "deadlock number".

2. Check that the operator's terms name IBAS and that the operator is in IBAS's directory.

3. Register on IBAS's website and fill in the claim form online, or ask for a paper form by post.

4. Say what you did and when, the outcome you expected and why, the outcome you got, the explanation you were given and what's happened since. Include your account number or username and the one email or chat your case rests on.

5. If the operator offers part of what you claim, you can take the undisputed part and keep going. Tell the operator in writing that you're taking only that part and don't accept the outcome, or it may treat the payment as a full settlement.

6. Answer IBAS's questions quickly, and diary the 10-day and 20-day appeal deadlines from the day the ruling arrives.

IBAS's current website is ibas-uk.com; the older address, ibas-uk.co.uk, redirects there. When we checked on 15 October 2026, the old address's security certificate had expired on 2 October, so a browser may show a warning before the redirect.11

If IBAS can't help

If IBAS rejects the dispute, check the reason. A dispute about the operator's conduct, such as self-exclusion or unaffordable gambling, goes to the Gambling Commission as a regulatory complaint. If you disagree with IBAS's ruling, the Commission's guidance says you may decide to go to the small claims court, after independent legal advice. A complaint about how IBAS handled your case goes to IBAS's directors. If you think an ADR provider has broken the law that governs it, the Commission's page sends you to the Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI).04140115

Before you get that far, our guide to what to do when a casino is refusing to pay lists what to save from day one.

What we couldn't check

• Six operators' terms. We couldn't confirm which dispute service bet365, Betway, Betfair, Ladbrokes, William Hill or Unibet name for UK customers.

• Who approves IBAS now. The Commission's list cites the 2015 ADR regulations and was last updated on 15 January 2025. Its page on complaining about an ADR provider, updated 19 May 2026, describes CTSI as the authority approving and overseeing ADR bodies under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024. We didn't read CTSI's own list.

• A money limit. IBAS's terms allow thresholds "set out on the IBAS website". We didn't find a figure on the pages we read, and its report shows no rejections on value.

• Results by operator. IBAS publishes totals only.