Melanie Ellis, partner at Northridge Law
Limitations on marketing activity
Gambling operators targeting the British market in 2026 will need to change their approach to bonuses and incentives.
On 19 January, new LCCP rules come into force which cap wagering requirements, meaning customers cannot be required to play through bonus funds more than 10 times before they can withdraw winnings from them. The amended rules will also prevent operators from including more than one type of gambling product in an incentive.
The impact of these measures will be compounded by the increased remote gaming duty rate to 40% for online casino operators from 1 April 2026. The combination of these changes will dramatically alter the landscape when it comes to the nature and value of bonus promotions on offer to British customers. Not only will incentives need to be simpler, with lower wagering requirements, but restricted marketing budgets mean we’re unlikely to see large matched deposit bonuses or high numbers of free spins going forward.
Unfortunately, this will create perfect conditions for unlicensed operators to thrive. With little or no taxation and no restrictions on the incentives that can be offered to tempt new customers, we can expect to see growth in the black market in 2026.
Shift in enforcement strategy
The Gambling Commission is likely to prioritise its enforcement activity in 2026 where it will have the most impact. During the past two years, the Commission has had significant work to do consulting on, and then implementing, the recommendations of the previous government’s white paper. Now, we can expect to see the Commission beginning to enforce compliance with the new requirements, but targeting that activity to the most serious cases due to limits on its resources. Licence suspensions should be expected in serious cases, as well as significant fines.
The Commission will begin receiving additional funding (£26m over the next three years) from the government, ringfenced for enforcement action against unlicensed operators. It will continue working with search engines to remove search results for illegal operators, but much of the additional funding is likely to be used to pursue prosecutions against those with the most impact in the British market. This activity will not be without challenges for the Commission, but its efforts may at least act as a deterrent.
The Crime and Policing Bill will grant additional powers to the Commission to tackle the black market, allowing it to apply to a judge for an order requiring ISPs to block access to specific website domains or IP addresses. The Commission will be able to issue blocking orders against companies based outside of the UK if there is evidence that they are operating illegally here, however enforcing these orders will be difficult. This bill has passed through the House of Commons and is now with the House of Lords, but its implementation date is yet to be determined.
Let’s evaluate
An evaluation of the impact of reforms introduced to implement the white paper’s recommendations is due in 2026. NatCan have been commissioned by the Commission and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to carry this out and will draw on operator data and consumer surveys to assess the impact and any unintended consequences of the recent regulatory changes.
It seems unlikely that any amendments to reforms already implemented will come out of this process. Given the raft of measures introduced in the past two years, it will be almost impossible to pinpoint the particular cause of any identified changes in gambling behaviour. Nevertheless, this process is critical for transparency and accountability and may inform any future regulatory interventions.
Kirsty Caldwell, Betsmart Consulting founder and CEO
Efficiency is key
All my predictions this year are ultimately driven by the UK Budget, as although it’s only a small piece of the greater industry pie, it’s a significant one. Many large, international operators have a decent sized footprint in the UK market, and it would be naive to assume that the industry as a whole won’t feel the repercussions.
My first prediction is a strong focus on operational efficiency. The importance of this plays out in so many different scenarios, a lot of which will be more frequently generated by a changing market.
As we see further acquisition and merger activity, companies will end up with more than one team and more than one set or procedures to undertake operational tasks. Operating this way is not only non-cost effective, but it also creates unnecessary compliance risk, as the complexity becomes too difficult to manage effectively. Confusion can creep in; and things start to slip between the cracks.
I believe that support in managing the M&A process from a ground-level operational perspective is going to be big business for external consultancy businesses in 2026.
Automation in action
My second prediction is another big push towards the automation of manual processes. While this has been a theme for years, a lot of operators are still using manual processes to help them manage areas like compliance operations such as safer gambling and enhanced due diligence.
Interestingly, operators are already using automated tools in these areas, but time and again we’ve seen a lack of commitment to properly embed, configure and use them. This means that operators just aren’t getting the best out of the technology they have available. They’ve had to create countless manual workarounds to stitch processes together and, ultimately, their frameworks are not holistically sound.
Investment will be needed to address this area, and I believe that operators are now ready to commit that, in an effort to stem further growth of operational teams.
Innovation comes to the fore
My third prediction is a bit more positive (although still Budget driven). I think we’ll see an explosion of exciting innovation in 2026.
This may come in the form of products and services as operators seek to retain the customers they already have, but it will also come in the form of marketing as they seek to find exciting, yet cheaper, ways to acquire new business. Also, with reference to my previous predictions, innovation in the form of operational approach and RegTech tools is also likely to be bolstered.
Similarly, we are likely to start seeing more innovation come from the B2B part of the sector as companies seek to develop new products and services to support operators through a dramatically changing market.
The post Industry predictions for 2026: Gambling Commission gets tough and efficiencies become key first appeared on EGR Intel.
Northridge Law partner Melanie Ellis and Betsmart Consulting founder Kirsty Caldwell give their prognoses for the sector over the next 12 months
The post Industry predictions for 2026: Gambling Commission gets tough and efficiencies become key first appeared on EGR Intel.