Gambling Commission Reveals Financial Risk Assessments Rollout

British regulator the Gambling Commission has confirmed the introduction of financial risk assessments (FRAs), which will aim to identify players experiencing financial difficulties, in one of the most significant alterations in the history of online gambling in the UK.

FRAs will be introduced in stages. The first stage of implementation will be carried out by the largest operators, where a high spend of multiple thousands of pounds across a 24-hour period is identified. For most players, this will mean a £5,000 net deposit in a rolling 24-hour period, which the Commission calls a “very unusually high spend pattern” that less than 0.5% of players exceed.

Moving thresholds

Once fully implemented, FRAs will be applied to players aged 25 or older with net deposits exceeding £1,000 in a rolling 24-hour period or £3,000 over a rolling 90-day period. For players under the age of 25, the threshold will be reduced to £750 in a rolling 24 hours or £2,000 in a rolling 90-day period.

The announcement follows a pilot which found 97% of players spending above the threshold levels could be assessed for financial difficulties in a frictionless manner, meaning less than 3% of accounts will be assessed and less than one in 1,000 accounts would be unable to get one. In those instances, operators may have to carry out assessments via other means such as open banking.

According to the Commission, high-spending players are 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 previous 12 months than consumers in the wider population.

What happens next?

The timetable for stage one of the rollout of FRAs will be confirmed after the Commission has engaged with the industry and other stakeholders via implementation groups which will be established during this summer.

Sarah Gardner, Acting Chief Executive of the Commission, said:

"We are confident that our approach, using high-quality data, will enable support for high-spending customers in financial difficulties, while reducing friction for customers who are not in financial difficulties by removing the need for unnecessary and unpopular document checks to understand financial risk.

“We have listened to feedback throughout the pilot process which has led to us deciding to carefully proceed. We will work with key partners to make sure that they are implemented in the most effective way for consumers and operators."

A delayed announcement

The announcement of the implementation plan for FRAs was delayed following a meeting of the Commission’s board last month. However, the Commission decided to take more time to make a final decision on if and how the assessments should be implemented.

Earlier last month, the Commission’s Director of Policy Ian Angus wished to stress how FRAs differ from the separately proposed affordability checks. With regards to FRAs, the Commission has outlined operators would not be required to assess a player’s income or how much an individual could afford to gamble.

Affordability checks were proposed as part of the government’s 2023 White Paper, which suggested a number of gambling regulatory reforms. Light-touch vulnerability checks were initially triggered when a player spent £500 in a month as part of a trial that began in August 2024, and from February 28, 2025, this decreased to £150 spend in a month. The final stage of the rollout of affordability checks is yet to be announced.