United Kingdom: all our coverage

Google will let certified online gambling advertisers buy the slot at the top of YouTube's homepage from 21 October, widening a carve-out that has covered only sports betting since 2022. The notice names no markets, and it arrives in a month when European lawmakers are moving to restrict gambling advertising rather than extend it.

Britain's gambling regulator has opened the search for a permanent chief executive, eight months after it announced Andrew Rhodes would leave. The salary has barely moved, but the job description now asks the winner to deliver a return on the Treasury's money for fighting illegal gambling.

DraftKings and FanDuel gave $3.5 million each in the latest reporting period, taking Tax Relief Nebraska's fundraising to $14.65 million for two online sports betting measures on the 3 November ballot. The committee registered to oppose them had reported nothing raised or spent by the same date, on Ballotpedia's count.

Three appeal judges have unanimously reversed the High Court on which law decides whether Georgian rulings stop Spribe reopening copyright ownership and copying in London. It is a procedural win for Aviator LLC, not a finding of infringement, and whether the Georgian rulings bind the English court is still undecided.

Denmark's government has put its lapsed gambling advertising bill back before the Folketing, with a 10-minute buffer around every live sports broadcast and new limits on who may appear in gambling ads. The clause with the most commercial bite is quieter: affiliates could no longer be paid on players' turnover or losses.

An independent Regulatory Commission heard the young striker's case that he placed none of the bets himself, and fined him anyway because he opened and funded the six accounts that others used. The written reasons put the total stake at under £2,000 and redact who placed the bets.

A Racing Post count of every British race title shows bookmakers sponsoring 17% fewer races this year, with the cuts deepening after Remote Gaming Duty went to 40% in April. It lands three weeks before a Budget that may raise machine games duty, which would hit racing harder.

Communities Minister Gordon Lyons told the Assembly that a review of the 2022 update to Northern Ireland's 1985 gambling law is expected next year, and that the Bill to regulate online gambling will be for a future Minister. Four years after Royal Assent, the 2022 Act's levy power has still not been brought into operation.

Alex Frost, who led the racehorse owners' purchase of the Tote from Betfred in 2019, will hand over to former GiG and DraftKings executive James Coxon at the end of 2026. In the same announcement the Tote is closing its online gaming and cutting back a consumer digital business that its latest accounts show made an EBITDA loss of £11.9 million.

The Gambling Commission found that staff at Rank's Grosvenor casinos treated customers' wealth or winning streaks as a reason for light-touch safer gambling checks, and that its anti-money laundering rules had not caught up with changes made in 2020. The regulator says risks more often associated with online gambling are equally alive on the casino floor.

IG's core trading business kept more customers and less of their money in the third quarter, and the London-listed broker has cut its 2026 growth outlook to mid-single digits. The US fantasy and prediction-market operator it agreed in July to buy for up to $1.3 billion more than doubled its revenue, but that deal has not closed and the business is in court with six states.

The London-listed events group is paying 11.1 times Clarion's expected 2027 EBITDA, part-funded by a £940 million share placing. The gambling industry's largest trade show is about to pass from private equity to a listed owner that names gaming as a growth category.

At her first policy panel as gambling minister, Vicky Foxcroft told a Labour conference audience that the consultation on scrapping the Gambling Act's "aim to permit" rule is coming "very shortly". She did not say when, or what will replace a principle that has governed every betting shop and arcade licence decision since 2007.

The first month to reflect the higher rate brought in 108% more online gaming duty than a year earlier, more than the rate rise alone explains. The industry says one month proves nothing; the Treasury, three weeks from a Budget that may double Machine Games Duty, may read it differently.

The Upper Tribunal has ruled that free spins won on a free promotional game fall outside Remote Gaming Duty, reversing the First-tier Tribunal and wiping out the assessment against the Super Group subsidiary. With the duty now at 40%, the ruling reaches well beyond one operator, unless HMRC appeals or Parliament changes the law.

Polymarket's offshore exchange lists contracts on whether 19 of the world's biggest banks, HSBC and Lloyds among them, will fail by the end of 2026. The sums are small, but a Treasury Committee MP warns that a market on a bank's collapse could help cause one, and Britain's regulators have so far said little more than that they are talking to their counterparts abroad.

Sarah Gardner used Allwyn's player protection conference to welcome the National Lottery's interim chief executive, five weeks after two MPs asked the regulator what it knew about him. She also warned that the Lottery's standing is "a high wire act where one wrong step can cause big problems".

Genting has shut its Coventry casino after a month-long staff consultation, blaming costs and tax rises the sector has already absorbed. The closure lands four weeks before a Budget that may double Machine Games Duty, and both sides of that argument are already using it.

The Department of Internal Affairs opened bidding on 29 September for the right to apply for one of up to 15 online casino licences, with a reserve price it will never disclose and no idea, it says, of what the auction will raise. Alongside it, a draft testing regime spells out what the winners will have to prove about their games and platforms.

A contract from the Casino Secrets leak shows the racing pictures and data supplier agreed in 2022 to serve Santeda's brands for a share of their revenue, according to the Guardian. Its owners include bookmakers that have repeatedly warned about the illegal market, and Entain says it has raised its concerns with SIS.

The regulator has confirmed time and loss limits, an on-screen net position and a ban on turbo and slam-stop features for new Category B machines, after more than 1,000 consultation responses. It dropped the plan to retrofit machines already on the floor, which industry estimated would have put about 7,770 of them at risk.

The Mecca and Grosvenor owner says a doubling would shut about a third of its estate and hit around 2,000 staff. Its own accounts suggest the arithmetic is real: on a rough estimate, the rise on Mecca's machines alone would exceed what its bingo clubs earn. The new gambling minister, touring one of its casinos this week, has so far spoken about bingo licensing rather than tax.

A freedom-of-information reply described by BNLData says the ministry held no assessment of what banning betting would do, though the memorandum its minister signed the same day priced the tax loss. The R$38.8 billion social-cost figure the government cited was built from English estimates, and its authors say it shows association, not causation.

Seven months after buying BMM Testlabs, the New York investment firm Visualize has completed its purchase of eCOGRA, creating a testing and certification group it says holds licences or accreditations in more than 800 jurisdictions. The price of neither deal has been disclosed.