From 19 December 2025 new rules will be enforced by the British Gambling Commission (Commission), which will bring sweeping changes to the way promotions are run by operators licensed by the Commission. The changes follow a consultation after the 2023 White Paper – High Stakes: gambling reform for the digital age, and were announced by the Commission on 26 March 2025.

LCCP SR 5.1.1 has most notably had the following provisions included:

“3.Licensees must not:

1. Apply wagering requirements, which requires a customer to play through bonus funds, over a maximum of 10 times. A wagering requirement is a where a customer is required to make wagers totalling a particular value for funds to become withdrawable.
2. Include more than one type of gambling product (betting, casino, bingo, and lottery) within an incentive.”

 Bonus wagering limit

Where a promotional offer requires that the consumer wagers any bonus funds multiple times before being allowed to withdraw the winnings, they will now be subject to a limit of 10 times.

Currently across the market many of the major operators have requirements at 40 or 50 times before the bonus cash of their welcome offers can be withdrawn. Therefore a £50 welcome bonus that previously had a 40 times wager requirement which required the consumer to play through that money £2,000 before being withdrawn, will now be limited to £500.

The aim of the new limit is to decrease the likelihood of consumers being made to gamble for longer and faster than they are used to, whilst also improving the transparency of the offer to create fairer customer choice.

Operators will need to ensure that all their promotions from the 19 December 2025 are limited to the ten times wagering requirement, which will also require many to reconsider their current promotional offerings, and what numbers will be sustainable going forwards.

Operators are also reminded, that wagering requirements for any promotion should be limited to only the bonus funds and should be clearly presented in the significant conditions of the promotion.

Mixed product promotional ban

Where a product promotional offer provides bonuses on the condition that the consumers play different products, such as betting and casino, this will be prohibited from 19 December 2025. The four product types in question are bingo, lottery, casino and betting; operators will need to ensure they are comfortable on which categories their products fall into based on the Gambling Act 2005 and Commission guidance.

The new wording in the LCCP SR 5.1.1 does lack a lot of clarity around the various nuances that operators have in their promotions, which the consultation response goes someway to address, however further clarity will likely be needed in the coming months. Some examples of the potential issues that operators will need to consider are discussed below, however these are in no way exhaustive.

This new rule has effectively ended the cross-selling of gambling products in promotions. A promotion can only have a bonus that matches the entry criteria, therefore a promotion with a bingo entry requirement may only have a bingo type reward. However, the consultation response goes a bit further in adding some comfort as it confirms:

“We do not consider the proposed ban to affect incentives which allow the customer to select the product on which to use credits or bonus money. For example, an incentive which provides a customer with £10 ‘credit’ to use as they wish on products is permitted.”

What has not been confirmed is whether a promotional offer that gives the consumer the option to wager an amount across various product types to enter the promotion is against the new rules. It would appear that a general option should be okay, as long as it does not require the consumer as a condition of entry to wager on more than one product type. However, this has not been confirmed in the new LCCP wording or consultation response.

Additionally, operators should note the confirmation that this new provision will align with the new LCCP SR 5.1.12 requirements, in that a marketing channel communication may contain a mix of product types that the consumer has opted into, and this new LCCP SR 5.1.1 provision will not impact that.

Conclusion

These new promotional regulations from the Commission will bring large changes to the way operators will need to structure their promotional offers in order to remain commercial and in line with the regulations. Operators should also view this as an ever-increasing interest from the Commission to ensure gambling marketing practices are fair, transparent, and do not increase consumer harm. For more information on how operators should be approaching their promotions going forwards, please reach out to us with any of your questions.