UK Gambling License Fees To Increase up to 55% Come October

It is now publicly known that starting October 1st, 2020, the new gambling license fees in the UK will come into force. More specifically, the new Gambling Commission fees come after a decision by the UK’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). More specifically, after the previous lobbying by the UK Gambling Commission. Moreover, after holding talks between 28 January and 26 March earlier this year concerning the proposals to change the fees by the Gambling Commission, the DCMS finally spoke out. And the result is up to a 55% increase in the price of license fees for the UK gambling market.

The main reason for such a proposal is due to three major issues that the UK Commission is facing. The increase of technology development, the magnitude of operators/businesses regulated by the Commission and black market gambling providers.

The Gambling Commission is quite happy with this news from the DCMS. Moreover, officials from the Commission praised the approval of the proposals and went on by saying:

We welcome this DCMS consultation response as it ensures much needed changes to our fee income that will enable us to continue to regulate effectively.

UK Gambling Commission Statement

Consequently, with this in mind, the DCMS fully supports the new legislation. As a result, it is now very clear that the DCMS will back the proposal for a 55% increase in annual operating license fees in the UK. Consequently, all new license applications will be subject to a 60% fee increase. Moreover, the non-remote operating license fees will increase by 15% as well. These changes will come into force starting 1st of April 2022.

The DCMS intends to fully proceed with the support and implementation of all proposed changes by the Commission. The government will also make only two amendment changes concerning the fees. One is addressing the variation fee and the proposal to charge the fee in certain situations. This will ensure fee regulations are up to GDPR standards. The other is to increase the Single Machine Permit fee from £20 to £40.

Changes that will come into effect starting October 1st are all fee-oriented. Those are the increase in annual fees for remote providers, an overall increase of all annual fees for remote providers and the removal of annual fee discounts for both combined and multiple licenses. Finally, the non-remote gambling licenses will be introduced on the 1st of April.