What the UK Gambling Commission does for players

The UK Gambling Commission licenses the companies that offer gambling to people in Great Britain, writes the rules they have to follow and takes enforcement action, including fines, when they break those rules. For you as a player that means age and ID checks before you play, stake caps on online slots, a cap on bonus wagering, GAMSTOP and no gambling on credit cards. It also publishes a register you can check yourself. What it doesn't do is settle your complaint or get your money back.04060711121518

We read the Commission's pages for players and its enforcement notices on 17 October 2026, and checked the 13 licences held by the companies behind seven UK brands we track against the Commission's register that morning. BullsRank isn't a law firm and this isn't legal advice. Our regulators hub lists the registers we read for each licence we track.1415

What does the UK Gambling Commission do?

It licenses gambling businesses and people in some roles in the industry, sets the Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice (LCCP), checks compliance, and takes enforcement action or prosecutes when a business or individual breaks the rules. Its own summary: "We exist to safeguard players and the wider public by ensuring gambling is fair and safe."04

Every licence application has to meet the licensing objectives in the Gambling Act 2005: preventing gambling from being a source of crime or disorder, ensuring that gambling is "conducted in a fair and open way", and protecting children and other vulnerable people from being harmed or exploited by gambling. The Commission also regulates The National Lottery.0301

Does it cover the whole UK?

No. The Commission regulates gambling in Great Britain, with The National Lottery the UK-wide exception. Its page on what it regulates says it "does not regulate the provision of remote gambling in Northern Ireland", although advertising remote gambling to consumers in Northern Ireland is an offence unless the business holds a Commission licence.0102

For players in Great Britain, a licence from another country doesn't count. The Commission's page on illegal gambling says: "A gambling licence issued in another country does not permit an operator to provide gambling to consumers in Great Britain." That would include a licence from Curaçao or Anjouan; our guide to checking a Curaçao licence covers what that register shows. The Commission runs a confidential service for reporting gambling that looks illegal.05

What a licensed operator has to do for you

These rules come from the Commission's pages for players and from its guidance and announcements for operators. They bind businesses licensed in Great Britain, not offshore sites.07081112060910

On ID, the Commission says a business that delays a withdrawal because of insufficient ID "may be in breach of Licence Condition 17" and may face regulatory action. On customer funds, it describes three levels of protection: none, medium and high. Even with separate accounts, it says, "there is no guarantee" you'll get money back if the business fails. Our guides to wagering requirements and self-exclusion go into those two rules.0709

How to check a UK licence in the register

The Commission publishes its register of gambling businesses for search and download. The licences file lists each account's licence number, status, type, activity and start date; the domain file lists each website with a status of Active, Inactive or White Label. When we downloaded the files at 09:55 UTC on 17 October 2026, the licences file had 4,499 rows (one per licensed activity) across 2,632 accounts, and 678 accounts had at least one Active row of the type Remote. The domain file had 2,226 rows: 1,058 Active, 816 Inactive and 352 White Label.1314

To check a site:

1. Find the company name in the site's footer or terms.

2. Find that company in the register and check the status is Active.

3. Check the activity covers what you want to do: Casino for slots, General Betting for sports bets.

4. Check the website you're on is listed under that account, and with what status.

We ran those steps for the seven UK brands we track. All 13 licence accounts were Active.14

Match on the account number, not only the full licence number. For four of the 13 licences, the number in our records had a different final three digits from the register's: Platinum Gaming 045322-R-324275-019, now -020; LC International 054743-R-330863-014, now -015; Midnite Limited 101839-R-342850-001, now -002; Dribble Media 042647-R-321653-022, now -023. Account, holder and activities were the same. Our profiles for Unibet, Ladbrokes and Midnite still printed the earlier numbers on 17 October 2026.14

What the enforcement record shows for these brands

The Commission's enforcement news page listed 100 notices on 17 October 2026, dated 17 March 2021 to 7 October 2026. Eight of them name a company behind six of the seven brands, and between them they announce £42,918,634 to be paid by those companies, as penalties or regulatory settlements. None names Midnite Limited or Dribble Media Limited.151920212223242526

The bet365, William Hill and Entain notices say the money is directed towards socially responsible causes or purposes as part of a regulatory settlement, and the Paddy Power Betfair £2m is also a settlement. A licence can be suspended too: the same page lists licence suspensions of other businesses in 2025 and 2026.21232620

What the Commission won't do: your complaint

It won't decide your dispute. "We are not an ombudsman," says its page on why it can't resolve individual complaints. "This means we do not have the powers to resolve gambling complaints or help consumers get their money back." Its page on withdrawals adds that it doesn't have access to customers' accounts. You complain to the business first; it has 8 weeks to resolve the complaint, and only after that process can you go to the alternative dispute resolution (ADR) provider it names. Our guides to IBAS and UK gambling disputes and to getting gambling losses refunded cover what those routes can and can't do.180817

Telling the Commission still matters when a business breaks its rules, for example by holding a withdrawal over ID it could have asked for earlier. The Commission says it uses information from gambling customers to address compliance failings and as evidence for enforcement action against a gambling business. Our complaints hub maps the route under each regulator.0718

What we couldn't check

• The operators' own pages. bet365's and Betway's help pages didn't open from our location on 17 October 2026, so we didn't check how they describe their licences or which customer-funds protection level they state.

• The licence conditions themselves. We read the Commission's guidance pages and one guidance note for operators, not the full LCCP text.

• Older enforcement. The enforcement page we read lists 100 notices back to 17 March 2021. We didn't read older notices or the register of regulatory actions.

• Change after our read. The register is a snapshot: statuses, websites and licence numbers can change after 17 October 2026.