Compliance Updates
Betting and Gaming Council Members Boast Record Compliance on Age Verification Checks
The members of the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) have achieved record compliance rates for age verification checks, according to leading industry auditor Serve Legal.
Independent figures provided by Serve Legal, show bookmakers boasted a 91.4% age verification pass rate, across thousands of annual checks.
Meanwhile, casinos have a near-perfect pass rate of 98%.
This represents a 30% compliance increase across the audit volume since 2009, when Serve Legal began working with the regulated betting and gaming sector.
Regulated betting and gaming is now the leading sector in the UK for age verification compliance, better than supermarkets, convenience stores and petrol forecourts and delivering 10-15% higher compliance rates than the alcohol and lottery sectors annually.
BGC members take a zero-tolerance approach to betting by children and have significantly raised standards to protect young people.
The most popular forms of betting by children are legal arcade games like penny pusher and claw grab machines, bets between friends or family, and playing cards for money – not with BGC members.
BGC members enforce strict age verification on all their products to prevent underage gaming and will further strengthen age verification measures by increasing the checking age from “Think 21” to “Think 25” across betting shops and casinos. This policy will require anyone who is over 18 but looks under 25 to provide ID.
The BGC also funds the £10m Young People’s Gambling Harm Prevention Programme, delivered by leading charities YGAM and GamCare, which has reached more than two million 11 to 19-year-olds, and those working with them, in the UK.
Wes Himes, Executive Director of Standards and Innovation, said: “The BGC and our members are incredibly proud of these compliance rates, which put us ahead of our peers in every department.
“I am hugely grateful to Serve Legal for their work over the last 15 years, who have been instrumental in this change. Serve Legal, alongside our members and their dedicated staff, have led the charge in raising standards and setting a new benchmark for excellence.
“Bookmakers and casinos play a vital economic role on the UK’s hard-pressed high streets, as well as in the leisure and tourism sector. But economic contribution has to go hand-in-hand with the highest standards.
“We are delivering that, which should be welcome news to customers and communities across the country. Our work to raise standards goes on, and I expect these compliance rates to continue improving across the land-based betting and gaming sector.”
Serve Legal is the market-leading provider of ID and compliance testing services in the UK & Ireland. Providing extensive, independent audit services to national retailers, leisure operators and sports broadcasters, Serve Legal’s site audits help clients protect and improve operational and compliance standards.
Over the last 15 years, Serve Legal has conducted over 200,000 bookmaker and casino site audits, to ensure due diligence across a range of compliance issues for BGC members.
Audit checks were conducted at single-site businesses through to national brands with thousands of locations on UK high streets.
Serve Legal Client Manager Ali Deering said: “Compliance challenges can be greater for smaller independent bookmakers. The BGC have done admirable work in bringing them up to speed with the latest compliance support, to offer a level playing field with other big names in the industry. At Serve Legal we are proud to be supporting all of the BGC’s members, including casinos, with their due diligence and celebrate the tangible successes in each of them!”
The improvement comes as a result of new measures on customer interactions and improved “challenge on entry” standards for age verification.
Serve Legal CEO Ed Heaver said: “The Serve Legal team are incredibly proud of the work conducted by the BGC and their members. Their impressive dedication and work ethic has paid off in some highly impressive statistics, showing the 30% compliance increase across the industry over the time that we have worked in the sector. We thank the BGC for pioneering their mission of customer safety alongside ours.”
The BGC’s commitment to protecting young people extends beyond land-based betting and gaming, including recent commitments on advertising.
In 2019, BGC members introduced the whistle-to-whistle ban on TV betting commercials during live sports before the 9 pm watershed, which led to the number of such ads being seen by children at that time falling by 97%.
BGC members have also introduced new age-gating rules for advertising on social media platforms, targeting ads to those aged 25 and over unless a platform can verifiably prove that its age-gating systems can prevent under-18s from accessing regulated betting and gaming advertising content.
The BGC has also written to the Government, asking them to urge social media companies to cooperate more closely with the betting and gaming industry in limiting marketing seen by young people and problem gamblers.
Recent data from the Gambling Commission published last year showed young people’s exposure to betting and gaming adverts and promotions had declined compared to the previous year.
Of 11 to 17-year-olds, 55% had seen regulated betting and gaming adverts offline, compared to 66% in 2022, and 53% had seen adverts online, compared to 63% in 2022.
The Government has previously stated research did not establish a causal link between exposure to advertising and the development of problem betting and gaming.
The regulated betting and gaming industry is determined to promote safer gaming, unlike the unsafe and growing online black market, which has none of the safeguards strictly employed by BGC members.
BGC members overall contribute £7.1bn to the economy and generate £4.2bn in tax while supporting 110,000 jobs.
Each month in Great Britain around 22.5m adults have a bet and the most recent NHS Health Survey for England estimated that 0.4% of the adult population are problem gamblers.
The post Betting and Gaming Council Members Boast Record Compliance on Age Verification Checks appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.
Compliance Updates
DCMS Concludes Consultation on Gambling Regulation Funding
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has published its consultation response on the funding of the Gambling Commission which took place between January and March this year.
The 2023 White Paper committed to a review of the Commission’s fees to ensure sufficient resources to deliver its core responsibilities and the commitments outlined in the Gambling Act Review.
The consultation findings now provide certainty on the Commission’s future income for the coming years.
Licence fees will increase by 25% overall, but the specific changes to fees will be different for each type of operating licence. New fee categories will also be introduced for most licences. Operators are strongly encouraged to review the annexes to the Government’s consultation response to understand how these changes affect their business.
Fees for society lotteries will be held at their current levels, and a new system of fees calculation will be implemented for non-remote general betting limited licence holders. Fees for personal licences will increase by a flat 25%.
Changes to the fees are subject to the passage of secondary legislation and will take effect on 1 October 2026.
Over the coming weeks, operators will be contacted by the Commission with further details about how this affects them and information about alignment to any new category. The criteria for the revised fee categories are set out in the DCMS consultation response. An operator’s submitted regulatory return data for 2025 to 2026 will be used to determine its new fee category.
For further information about the findings of the consultation you can visit the DCMS consultation response webpage.
The post DCMS Concludes Consultation on Gambling Regulation Funding appeared first on EE Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.
Compliance Updates
Tim Miller Announces Departure from UK Gambling Commission
The UK Gambling Commission has announced that Tim Miller, Executive Director of Policy & Research, has decided to leave the Commission in September 2026 after 10 years of service.
Following his departure, Tim will take up a new role outside of the British regulated gambling industry, supporting governments, regulators and other organisations that are developing and overseeing gambling regulatory systems around the world.
During his time at the Commission, Tim has played a leading role in strengthening the Commission’s research and evidence base, bringing greater rigour and robustness to its research framework. He has overseen the development and launch of the Gambling Survey for Great Britain – the largest survey of its kind anywhere in the world – helping to transform the evidence available to inform gambling regulation and policy.
Tim has also led the Commission’s work to implement the Government’s Gambling Act Review White Paper, overseeing the introduction of a wide range of new protections and regulatory measures. These include reforms to age verification, financial vulnerability checks, remote game design, direct marketing controls and wider measures to make gambling safer, fairer and free from crime.
Tim Miller said: “I have worked at the Commission longer than anywhere else during my career and have found it the most rewarding and fulfilling role. In large part this has been due to the amazing and dedicated colleagues that I’ve had the pleasure to work alongside. That’s what made it a hard decision to leave but after ten years I felt ready for the next challenge.”
Sarah Gardner, Acting Chief Executive of the Gambling Commission, said: “Tim has provided outstanding service to the Commission for ten years. I would like to thank Tim for his significant contribution to gambling regulation and wish him every success in the future.”
The post Tim Miller Announces Departure from UK Gambling Commission appeared first on EE Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.
AGCO
AGCO Fines Great Canadian Entertainment $120,000 for Using Unauthorised Gaming System Software at Four Casinos
The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) has ordered monetary penalties totalling $120,000 against Great Canadian Entertainment (GCE) for using unauthorided gaming system software at multiple Ontario casino sites, a serious compliance failure that bypassed requirements designed to protect the integrity of casino gaming.
Gaming equipment and systems are central to casino operations. They process payments and wagers, support slot-game play and help maintain controls that protect the integrity, safety and security of the gaming environment. When these systems are used or operated without required testing, monitoring and approval, it weakens safeguards designed to detect and prevent unlawful conduct, including money laundering, and can undermine public confidence in Ontario’s regulated casino sector.
The AGCO reviewed 40 instances in which revoked or unapproved bill validator software had been installed across four casino sites between February 20 and March 15, 2025. Bill validators are components within gaming machines that accept and process cash and help support anti-money laundering controls.
The AGCO’s Standards for Gaming require gaming equipment and software to be tested and approved before being deployed in casinos. Bill validators verify the authenticity and value of cash inserted into electronic gaming machines and are an important safeguard. That is why these systems must undergo rigorous testing and approval to confirm they operate as intended, perform critical functions reliably and are authorised before being introduced into a live casino environment.
Casino operators are responsible for ensuring that changes to gaming systems are properly reviewed, tested and authorised before implementation. Using unapproved software in a live casino environment is a serious compliance failure.
A casino operator served with an Order of Monetary Penalty has the right to appeal the Registrar’s action within 15 days to the Licence Appeal Tribunal (LAT), an adjudicative body that is part of Tribunals Ontario and independent of the AGCO.
“The AGCO requires casino operators to protect the integrity of their gaming systems by making sure they are independently tested, approved and operating as intended. When unauthorised software is used in a live casino environment, it bypasses critical safeguards that are meant to uphold the integrity of gaming and the public’s confidence in the system. The AGCO will continue to hold all casino operators accountable for meeting Ontario’s high standards of gaming system integrity,” said Dr. Karin Schnarr, Registrar and Chief Executive Officer at AGCO.
The post AGCO Fines Great Canadian Entertainment $120,000 for Using Unauthorised Gaming System Software at Four Casinos appeared first on EE Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.
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