Northern Ireland Expects to Review Its 2022 Gambling Act in 2027 and Leaves Online Reform to the Next Assembly

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.

• Communities Minister Gordon Lyons told the Northern Ireland Assembly on 29 September that a review of the Betting, Gaming, Lotteries and Amusements (Amendment) Act (Northern Ireland) 2022 is expected to take place next year
• He said a comprehensive reform Bill could not be introduced in this mandate and left the detail to a future Minister
• Sinn Féin MLA Philip McGuigan pressed for proposals on online gambling, a regulator and a levy; Lyons said officials are comparing the regime with the rest of the UK and the Republic of Ireland, where a new regulator has begun licensing
• The 2022 Act's power to impose an industry levy is still listed as not in force on legislation.gov.uk, and Lyons said work on its "feasibility and sustainability" is ongoing
• The Department for Communities' 2024 survey classed 3% of adults as problem gamblers, and Lyons has asked the UK Culture Secretary for engagement on the Northern Ireland element of Great Britain's statutory levy on remote operators

The Minister Rules Out a Reform Bill Before the 2027 Election

Gordon Lyons, the Democratic Unionist Party Minister for Communities, was answering an oral question from Philip McGuigan, the Sinn Féin MLA for North Antrim, on what work had been done so that "effective gambling legislation can be brought forward from the start of the next Assembly mandate", according to the Assembly's Official Report for 29 September.

"I concluded some time ago that it would not be possible in the current mandate to introduce a Bill of the scale and complexity necessary to achieve the comprehensive reform of gambling legislation that is required," Lyons said, pointing to the pace of change in online gambling. "It will be for a future Minister to determine the detail of the gambling legislation that should be taken forward in the next mandate." Officials will "continue to scope and gather evidence on the statutory protections that are already in place". The mandate ends with the Assembly election due in May 2027.

The review of the 2022 Act, "which is expected to take place next year, will assess whether the changes brought in in 2022 are working as they were intended", Lyons said. He gave no date and did not say whether it will be published. "Work is also ongoing to assess the feasibility and sustainability of a gambling industry levy," he added.

McGuigan asked him to go "beyond just scoping" and leave the next Minister proposals on online gambling, "perhaps on an independent regulator and a levy". Lyons replied that "we will certainly not be starting from scratch", that officials have been "actively comparing our regime with frameworks in other parts of the UK and the Republic of Ireland", and that the eventual Bill would "probably be one of the largest pieces of legislation, if not the largest, that we will ever take through the House".

Answering Alliance MLA Danny Donnelly, Lyons said he had written to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport "to request engagement on the Northern Ireland element of the GB gambling levy on remote operators", calling gambling "very much a Health issue as well". Asked by the SDLP's Justin McNulty whether he had engaged on an all-island gambling strategy, Lyons answered: "No."

A 1985 Order, a Partial Update and a Second Phase That Never Came

Northern Ireland's gambling law is the Betting, Gaming, Lotteries and Amusements (Northern Ireland) Order 1985, modelled on Great Britain's gambling Acts of the 1960s and 1970s, according to the 2022 Act's explanatory notes. There is no gambling regulator: courts and district councils license most activity, and the Police Service of Northern Ireland enforces the law.

In May 2021 the then Minister, Deirdre Hargey, announced a two-phase review, according to the Department for Communities. Phase one became the 2022 Act, which received Royal Assent on 26 April 2022. It let betting shops and bingo clubs open on Sundays, raised the society lottery ticket limit from £1 to £100, created an offence of inviting a person under 18 to play anything other than a lower-limit gaming machine, and gave the Department powers to issue mandatory codes of practice and to impose a levy to fund treatment, education and research on gambling harm.

Phase two, in the Department's words, "was for a wider reform with an aim to regulate online gambling and gaming". The Assembly dissolved in March 2022, and the Department says further reform is for a new Minister and Executive.

Even phase one is only partly in force. The machines offence, a rewritten cheating offence and the code of practice power took effect on 1 October 2023. The Department consulted on an initial code from 1 October to 24 December 2024, proposing to ban gambling on credit, remove ATMs from betting shops, bingo clubs and amusement and gaming centres, and require age checks and self-exclusion. Section 15, the levy, is still marked as prospective on legislation.gov.uk.

The Review Will Measure the Part of the Market That Is Already Regulated

A review of the 2022 Act can say whether Sunday opening or the machines offence work, but not much about the channel Lyons himself singled out. The Department's 2024 prevalence survey of 2,000 adults found 57% had gambled in the previous year and 23% had gambled online, and classed 3% as problem gamblers on the Problem Gambling Severity Index. Online play sits outside Northern Ireland's licensing law, so the evidence has to come from other jurisdictions.

The Levy Is the Test of Whether Scoping Produces Anything

The clearest gauge of this mandate is section 15. The Assembly granted the levy power in 2022; four years later its feasibility is still being assessed. It would apply only to applicants for land-based licences and permits, a narrow base when there is no local licence for online operators to hold. Lyons's letter to the Culture Secretary points to a broader route: a share of the statutory levy Great Britain's operators already pay. No response from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has been made public.

A Neighbour's New Regime Raises the Cost of Waiting

The Republic's regulator is now licensing operators, and Stake has blocked Irish players after talks with it. Northern Ireland, across a land border, still has no regulator, and Lyons's one-word answer on an all-island strategy suggests convergence is not on the agenda. Any Bill the next Executive commissions will be drafted from behind both neighbours.

Northern Ireland set out to regulate online gambling in 2021 and has since delivered a levy power it has not used. The 2027 review will show what the 2022 changes achieved; it will not regulate the market they left out.