Personal Management Licence (PML)

British gambling regulation licences people as well as companies, and the personal management licence is how. An operator’s licence conditions require that the individuals responsible for specified management functions (overall management and direction, chairing the board, finance, regulatory compliance, anti-money-laundering, marketing, gambling-related information technology, and oversight of the day-to-day management of licensed premises) each hold a PML, granted after the Commission has assessed their identity, integrity, competence and history. The holder is then personally subject to the Commission's jurisdiction: they can be investigated, have conditions attached, and have the licence suspended or revoked, independently of anything that happens to the company.

The purpose is accountability. When an enforcement case finds that an operator's anti-money-laundering controls failed, the Commission can, and increasingly does, examine the PML holder responsible for that function, and a personal finding follows a person to their next role. Boards and executive teams therefore treat PML functions as positions of personal regulatory exposure, and the Commission has said explicitly that it expects PML holders to challenge commercial decisions that create compliance risk and that a holder who did not is themselves at fault.

Other jurisdictions have equivalents under different names: Malta's key function holders, the American states' individual licences and findings of suitability for officers and key employees, Ontario's registration of key individuals, and Ireland's fit and proper assessment of relevant officers under the Gambling Regulation Act 2024. The common feature is that the regulator can act against the person, which is the feature that changes how compliance decisions are made inside the company.