The Gambling Commission remit ends at the border of UKGC-licensed operators. Offshore sites offering remote gambling to UK customers without a licence commit an offence under the Gambling Act 2005.
UK Gambling Commission · · · gamblingcommission.gov.uk
What this site covers
Six chapters, each opening the topic and linking to the full page.
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Chapter 01
GamStop explained
GamStop is a national self-exclusion database operated by the National Online Self Exclusion Scheme Limited, a not-for-profit set up by the UK gambling industry under a formal requirement written into UK Gambling Commission licence conditions. It went live in April 2018 and became mandatory for every UKGC-licensed remote gambling operator on 31 March 2020.
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Chapter 02
The legal position
The player position under UK law is short. A UK adult who places a bet at a gambling site licensed abroad has not committed a criminal offence under the Gambling Act 2005.
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Chapter 03
The risks explained
The absence of UKGC oversight is not a single missing item; it is a set of missing items that a UK adult does not notice until the one they need is the one that is absent. On a UKGC-licensed remote site the operator is bound by the Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice, which carry the complaints route, the ADR requirement, the GamStop query at registration and deposit, the source-of-funds triggers written into the Commission's guidance, the social responsibility interventions, the customer fund-segregation categories under Licence Condition 4, and the co-operation obligations under the Money Laundering Regulations 2017.
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Chapter 04
Payments and checks
The Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017, referred to in shorthand as MLR 2017, are the statutory instrument through which the United Kingdom brought the Fourth Money Laundering Directive into domestic law, and through which the Fifth Directive was subsequently transposed by the 2019 amendment. The Sixth Directive is in effect for scope purposes, with its predicate-offence provisions read across through the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and the Criminal Finances Act 2017.
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Chapter 05
Coming off GamStop
Offshore Ledger UK reads regulators for a living, and the paper on which national self-exclusion schemes are built has become one of the most-read sections of the site. The reason is that a UK adult searching for a route out of GamStop before the period they chose has ended is often searching in a moment that is not calm, and public information written in plain English at that moment is worth more than any operator's marketing copy would ever be.
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Chapter 06
Getting support
The National Gambling Helpline is the front door of the UK support system for gambling harm. It is operated by GamCare, is free from UK landlines and mobile networks, is confidential, and is answered 24 hours a day, every day of the year, on 0808 8020 133.