Gambling Commission tightens payout speed rules

09 November 2026

The Gambling Commission is putting UK operators under further pressure to get money back to customers quickly, as it publishes more rigorous expectations on withdrawal speeds and tightens rules on when and how far operators can check customers after a withdrawal is requested.

The Commission's new guidelines make clear that operators are not living up to their licensed obligations if they introduce extra delay or hassle at the point of payout, rather than at the time of depositing. Customers should expect to have their withdrawal requests approved, processed and the money in their bank accounts within 48 hours, the Commission says, unless they fall under stricter checks such as AML or fraud checks.

Operators must now request "source of funds" information as early as possible, ideally at the point a customer deposits rather than when they come to withdraw, the Commission says. Asking for details only at the point of withdrawal is "not acceptable".

These expectations come as the regulator revealed this is the number one complaint from players, with over 2,000 complaints a year. The Commission's chief executive, Andrew Rhodes, said in a blog in July 2024 that player complaints had "risen sharply" over the past 12 months, with long delays in receiving winnings a major contributor.

The latest push follows regulator action against L&L Europe, operator of Lottoland, Bigpay and some other low-margin and new brands which was fined £900,000 in October 2023 for issues including directly and indirectly delaying withdrawals. The Commission said L&L had limited players to one pending withdrawal at a time and had applied too many manual reviews to player payout requests.

The new advice is a tightening of existing rules. Anyone can have money frozen under AML checks like the Proceeds of Crime Act or the Money Laundering Regulations, and operators obviously need to know their customers and can require new players to verify details before they can play or withdraw money, if they identify risk.

The Commission has now made clear operators must request what a player is going to do with their money "at the earliest possible time", and "in many cases, it means when a deposit is made rather than when a withdrawal is requested". When it comes to the rate, the Commission expects "more than 99% of withdrawal requests approved, processed and fulfilled by the licensed operator to the customer within 24 to 48 hours of the request being made" and is calling time on "unnecessary and/or avoidable delays, and/or onerous, unreasonable or disingenuous requests for information from the customer".

The new guidelines on customer verification at the point of playing and money coming in point the industry in the direction of approaches tech and card processing companies have long used, such as pre-funded cards or pre-verification checks.