GamStop is a free self exclusion service for Great Britain that lets people block themselves from signing up for or using accounts with online gambling websites and apps licensed in Great Britain. A person registers, GamStop checks their identity and adds them to its register, and licensed operators check the register when anyone tries to use an online gambling account, blocking those who are on it. Users choose an exclusion period from six months to five years, which cannot be cancelled once started and stays in place after it ends unless the person asks for it to be removed, with an option to renew automatically. The service says it is used by more than half a million people in the UK, including family members protecting themselves. It also runs Gamstop Betting Shops, which extends self exclusion to high street bookmakers.
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The Advertising Standards Authority has upheld a complaint against affiliate Optival after its paid search ad for betting bonuses appeared in response to a search for "self exclusion bookies". It is the second time in seven weeks the regulator has found an affiliate's negative keyword list was not enough to keep gambling ads away from people looking for help.
The Gambling Commission has traced 3,426 payments to illegal operators through consenting people's bank records and found that those making them did not abandon the licensed market. Of those with a survey score, 45% scored 8 or more on the Problem Gambling Severity Index, against 6% of licensed gamblers in the same data.
Speaking to the world's gambling regulators in Peru, the Commission's acting chief executive answered critics of affordability checks and of her own survey data in unusually blunt terms. On the illegal market, the money has arrived but the new court powers have not.
The Comoros government says the licences sold in Anjouan's name have no legal basis, that British citizens have been identified, and that it has asked the UK for help. The Guardian links the licensing service to a London company, which denies selling gaming licences.
A senior coroner has told the Gambling Commission that people who self-exclude through GamStop can still play National Lottery draws online. The Commission says it needs up to 12 months of discovery before deciding what, if anything, to change.
Tim Miller, a senior figure at the Gambling Commission for about a decade, has set up an advisory firm aimed at governments and regulators rather than operators, starting in North America. He says it will not be "just another compliance consultancy", and has already said what he thinks does not work: blanket prohibitions and ever-higher taxes.
Euromat puts Europe's illegal online market at €12 billion and says it has tripled since 2019. The Betting and Gaming Council promotes a separate report putting the global figure at $50 billion. The two numbers cannot be compared, both were commissioned by interested parties, and both reach the same conclusion about what enforcement is doing wrong.
The Netherlands has flagged thousands of unlicensed gambling adverts to Meta in a single month. With the country's licensed market shrinking and the black market growing, the role of social platforms in fuelling that shift is becoming impossible to ignore.
The UK Gambling Commission has accused Meta of profit seeking at the expense of player safety, claiming the social media giant allows illegal casinos to bypass British self exclusion schemes. Tim Miller warned that the regulator will use new powers and millions in funding to make the black market commercially toxic for all involved.
The integrity of the United Kingdom's regulated gambling market is facing a persistent challenge from a growing number of offshore operators that deliberately