UKGC reacts to ‘misleading’ comments on financial risk assessment

After almost a year of silence, the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has released an update on its financial risk assessment pilot project.

The current letter comes as calls for additional inspection of the pilot study continue to grow, along with the dissident voices regarding the implementation of the checks.

A key recommendation within the Gambling White Paper 2023 was that financial risk assessments would be a frictionless process that assisted to identify potentially hazardous behavior.

But opponents have voiced concerns the entrance of checks will push players to the illegal market and impair the health of the regulated business.

In its first update since May 2025, the UKGC has been trying to dampen down the growing anger, dismissing much of the recent comment as “ill-informed or inaccurate”.

In a statement, the agency said: “Some coverage has suggested that financial risk assessments are currently pushing consumers to use illegal operators. This is standard the assessments are not live and no consumer has had any action taken based on one — even during the pilot.

They may have asked consumers for documentation or performed other checks, but these were not financial risk assessments. Such checks may be for a variety of purposes, such as anti-money-laundering, commercial reasons or where there were safer gambling concerns from the gambling firm.

The UKGC also resisted suggestions that it is seeking to set limitations on how much customers can spend and maintained that thresholds are merely used as a trigger for a check and the consumer can continue gambling while this is undertaken.

Dealing with worries
Opponents’ concerns have centered on the potential intrusion on consumers, who will take their business to the black market, where they cannot be targeted by the checks.

A YouGov poll for the Betting and Gaming Council indicated that 65% of gamblers would not be ready to give out personal information such as bank statements as part of financial checks.

However, the UKGC said there would be no need for operators to ask for papers from customers after an assessment and it would support operators on how to avoid ‘choosing to build in needless complexity for consumers’.

The group also highlighted some prior data it had published from its analysis that indicated operators would be unable to do an evaluation in a seamless fashion for 1 in 1000 customers on average.

Credit agencies carry out financial checks and the UKGC has admitted that various agencies have produced different results for the same consumer based on industry reports.

"We are glad that the pilot has provided us useful information about data differences amongst credit reference companies, said the UKGC. “This information can help inform comparisons to the consistency of the data and processes that operators currently use, and practical steps that can be considered if the decision is to proceed to implementation. 

Retaining participants in the regulated market
The Financial Risk Assessments are there to engage with a client to make sure that they can play sustainably in the regulated sector, beyond the check that is being done, and that was the main point of the UKGC statement.

“Customer support works best when it enables customers to gamble sustainably, rather than simply switching to the land-based, bricks and mortar market, between operators or to the illegal market,” the regulator stated.

“Operators tell us that the action they would take to support a customer, when they identify financial vulnerability, can be viewed as friction in the journey. But we must not forget that the policy is intended to provide contact or assistance to a client who is determined to be in financial difficulties.”

In the pilot cohort consumers were between two and four times more likely to have a debt management plan and between two and five times more likely to have a default in the last 12 months compared to the general population, the UKGC said.

This will now be forwarded to the Gambling Commission Board for consideration of the following steps, however the UKGC supplied no timetable as to when this may happen.

The regulator said: “If we decide to introduce these assessments we will work closely with the industry and credit reference agencies on the details of a sensible implementation plan.”

“We recognize the possibility of over-implementation or implementation of regulatory requirements at a speed that could create undue friction for consumers.”