Britain’s biggest bookmakers are squaring up for a High Court fight with the Gambling Commission over a controversial new regime of so-called affordability checks, in a row that threatens to drag the regulator into yet another costly courtroom battle and reopen one of the most contentious debates in UK consumer-facing business.
Industry chiefs say the checks, which would block customers from placing further bets once they cross specific loss thresholds, contain “serious failings” and risk pushing hundreds of thousands of punters into an unregulated black market that is already mushrooming online. With the Gambling Commission expected to decide this week whether to impose the rules unilaterally, the Betting & Gaming Council (BGC) has put the regulator on formal notice that legal action is now firmly on the table.
A flagship reform under fire
Affordability checks – formally known as financial risk assessments (FRAs), sit at the heart of the biggest overhaul of British gambling laws in a generation, introduced under the previous Conservative government in 2023. The intention was straightforward: identify high-spending customers who may be in financial difficulty and intervene before harm escalates. The political promise that accompanied it was equally clear – any such checks would be “frictionless”, invisible to the ordinary punter.
Under the proposed regime, an FRA would be triggered when a customer loses £1,000 or more in 24 hours, or £2,000 over 90 days. Operators that fail to carry out the checks risk regulatory action; customers who refuse to comply face being locked out of their accounts.
The Commission has leant heavily on the results of its pilot, which ran from September 2024 to April 2025 and used around 800,000 historical data points. According to its own published findings, only 3 per cent of gamblers would face an assessment, and 97 per cent of those would be “frictionless” – meaning the customer would not have to lift a finger.
The BGC disputes almost every part of that picture.
“Serious failings” and a 20% problem
In a letter dated 21 April and addressed to the interim chair of the Gambling Commission, seen by The Sunday Times, the BGC set out “grave concerns about the wider ramifications” of the FRA proposals. The trade body argues that once you strip out customers spending less than £200 a year on betting – essentially casual punters who place the occasional flutter, the true proportion of regular customers caught up in checks could be closer to 20 per cent, not 3 per cent.
It also flagged stark inconsistencies in data drawn from the three credit-reference agencies involved in the pilot. In more than half of some cases, the BGC said, a risk flag was raised by only one of the three agencies, a finding that, if accurate, undermines the central claim that the system can reliably distinguish a vulnerable customer from a comfortable one.
Grainne Hurst, BGC chief executive, did not mince her words: “Given the serious concerns raised by operators, there is a real risk that the industry could ultimately be left with little choice but to consider legal challenges if these proposals proceed without further scrutiny.”
The Commission, the BGC told The Sunday Times, has not yet responded to the April letter.
One senior industry source put it more bluntly: “It’s ridiculous that we’ve been forced to consider such a dramatic step. I hope the Gambling Commission and government see sense. They’re blind to the damage these checks could cause.”
The black market gathering pace
The commercial backdrop for the dispute is what makes it a story for British business, not just the gambling lobby. The Commission’s own reforms, first unpacked by Business Matters, have already raised the cost of compliance for licensed operators and tightened the screws on bonusing, customer interaction and product design – a trend examined in more detail in our analysis of the 2026 gambling reforms.
The fear inside the regulated industry is that affordability checks tip an already finely balanced equation in the wrong direction. The BGC estimates that the offshore black market has more than tripled in size since 2022 and that unlicensed operators could be spending £1 billion a year on advertising by 2028, more than the entire regulated UK market combined. The trade body warns that as much as £300 million in tax receipts could be lost as customers migrate to operators that ask no questions and offer no protections.
Critics counter that the industry is talking up the black-market threat to protect incumbents. Either way, as our earlier reporting on the business of British bookmakers made clear, the licensed sector is a meaningful contributor to the Treasury, to racing’s levy and to high-street employment – and few in Whitehall want to be seen handing market share to operators based in jurisdictions Britain does not regulate.
“The evidence so far suggests these proposals are not fit for purpose and risk driving people away from the regulated market towards the growing illegal online black market, where there are no protections and no safeguards,” Hurst said.
A regulator on the back foot
For the Gambling Commission, the prospect of another High Court fight is awkward, to put it mildly. The regulator has been at the centre of an unusually heavy caseload in recent months, including a bruising dispute with Richard Desmond, the billionaire former proprietor of the Daily Express, over the awarding of the multibillion-pound National Lottery contract, and a separate privacy case brought by executives from Entain, the parent company of Ladbrokes and Coral.
It is also rudderless at the top. Andrew Rhodes, the Commission’s chief executive, departed abruptly earlier this month to join Hawkbridge, the new advisory arm of law firm Harris Hagan – a firm that has acted for several of Britain’s largest bookmakers. The optics of the departure are not lost on operators now contemplating litigation.
In a statement, the Commission defended its approach: “A pilot was used to test how frictionless the White Paper policy could be and give us useful findings on how it could be implemented. We have been rigorously assessing that work in detail throughout the pilot, drawing upon a range of evidence and input from pilot participants and advised by NatCen. The proposed approach has been subject to significant scrutiny already and we have published findings during the process.”
What to watch this week
For the SME-heavy supply chain that hangs off Britain’s regulated betting industry, from data providers and payments firms to marketing agencies and the racing sector, this week’s decision matters. A green light without industry buy-in raises the prospect of months of legal uncertainty, suspended investment and contractual disputes. A pause or a redesign would buy time but extend the regulatory grey zone that has already prompted operators to scale back UK exposure.
What is harder to dispute is that the Commission’s room for manoeuvre is shrinking. With High Court action threatened, a chief executive gone and a black market growing in confidence, the regulator’s next move will be watched not just by bookmakers but by every consumer-facing business that depends on a stable, proportionate licensing regime.