On 4 February 2025, the Gambling Commission published its response to its November 2023 consultation on changes it intended to make to the Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice (LCCP) and the Remote Gambling and Software Technical Standards (RTS).

The Commission’s response sets its position on the following areas:

• Customer-led tools;
• Transparency on protection of customer funds; and
• Changes to the LCCP in preparation for the forthcoming statutory levy.

Customer-led tools

The changes

The Commission will update the requirements and guidance of RTS 12 dealing with financial limits with the intention of improving consumer choice and the effectiveness of financial limits, observing the requirement to do so in a frictionless manner.  The main changes include:

• all customers must be prompted to set a financial limit as early as possible in the customer journey (and in any event prior to their first deposit);
• financial limits must only be offered using free text (i.e. these cannot be predetermined amounts);
• financial limits must be applied at the account level, however operators may also continue to offer financial limits per product or channel;
• financial limit setting facilities must be provided via a link on the homepage and must be clearly visible and accessible (i.e. as few clicks away as possible);
• all customer requests to decrease a financial limit must be actioned immediately; and
• licensed operators shall prompt customers to review their financial limits at least every six months.

These changes to RTS 12’s requirements and implementation guidance will come into effect on 31 October 2025.

This was all broadly as expected but there are two points which haven’t grabbed the headlines and where developments need to be closely monitored.

Gross, Net or both?

The Commission notes that during the consultation it became clear to it that deposit limits are being interpreted by licensees in different ways and has indicated that it will shortly publish a supplementary consultation to clarify the proposed requirement that it is ‘gross deposit limits’ that must be offered by all licensees, while other types of financial limit could also continue to be offered to customers.

This refers to the introduction by various operators in recent times of what have been presented as ‘net deposit limits’. The Commission suggests this is causing consumer confusion (its term) yet ‘net deposit limits’ are, when explained, relatively simple to understand and reflect what a deposit limit is ultimately designed to do (i.e. control spend). Importantly, itis much more aligned with the concept of affordability than a ‘gross deposit limit’. A net deposit limit tracks the amount a customer has actually lost, rather than just looking at what the customer has deposited in isolation of the result of their gambling. The Commission doesn’t go as far as to say that ‘net deposit limits’ are non-compliant with current RTS requirements. We consider they fall squarely within the “spending limits” option in the RTS12A implementation guidance so it will be important for affected operators to respond to the consultation.

Cross-brand

In addition, as part of the consultation the Commission queried if customers holding multiple accounts with more than one operator in a group of companies (or a “parent company” as the Commission confusingly phrased it) should be able to apply limits across all such accounts. The Commission is not pursuing this option, in part because of the risk of friction.

The Commission states that its decision does not impact on or override requirements for licensees to be able to identify multiple accounts held by customers with an individual operator as currently required under LCCP 3.9.1 (Identification of individual customers) or the requirement for licensees to use customer account and activity data such as spend and use of gambling management tools to monitor accounting activity for the purposes of identifying risk of harm under LCCP 3.4.3 (Customer Interaction).

We find the presentation of this point confusing and it is the silence around one element of 3.9.1, namely the requirement to ensure “individual financial limits can be implemented across all of a customer’s accounts” that would warrant further clarification. Assuming operators are not required to apply limits across accounts held with different group companies, it would help if Commission could be clear whether this means 3.9.1.3(d) is now obsolete. If not, what exactly does it require operators to do across their groups?

Transparency on protection of customer funds

Operators are already required to inform customers if their funds are protected in the event of insolvency of the operator and clarify the level of protection (‘not protected’, ‘medium protection’, or ‘high protection’).

Operators whose customer funds are ‘not protected’ will now be required to actively remind consumers of this status every six months to make sure that this is clear to customers throughout their relationship with the operator.

These requirements will be included in LCCP 4.2.1 on 31 October 2025.

Preparation for the statutory levy

The existing requirement in SR 3.1.1 paragraph 2 that requires operators to make annual financial contributions to specific research, prevention, and treatment organizations will be removed in anticipation of the government’s upcoming statutory levy, which is expected to be implemented on 6 April 2025. The LCCP SR Code provision will no longer be needed now that operators will be required to pay a levy from April 2025.

Read here for more information on the statutory levy.