UK rejects three fee options, then chooses a 25% Gambling Commission increase

The UK government consulted on three headline approaches to Gambling Commission fees: 30%, 20%, or 20% with a further 10% ringfenced for illegal-market, revenue-protection and related work. Its final response says none of those options will proceed. The selected headline increase is 25%, with no ringfence requirement.

That does not make the consultation meaningless, but it does make the sequence important. The final figure sits between the two simple percentage options and removes the earmarked structure in the third. Readers should not describe 25% as the option that respondents selected, because it was not presented to them in that form.

DCMS received 47 responses, mainly from licensed operators. Almost all operator respondents opposed all three options and preferred no increase. Two responses backed the 30% option, four supported 20%, and none supported the proposal combining 20% with a ringfenced 10% increase.

The government nevertheless concluded that more income is necessary for the Commission to maintain regulatory work. It says no increase, or even the 20% option, would force significant cutbacks and the loss or deprioritisation of work considered important. This is a funding decision made despite the dominant industry preference.

The response repeatedly calls 25% a headline increase. It will not be distributed evenly across every operating-licence category. The annexes contain specific amounts, and some fee bands produce different cash effects depending on an operator's activity and gross gambling yield.

Society-lottery fees will be frozen. General betting limited licences, used by on-course bookmakers, will move from a structure based on operating days to one based on gross gambling yield. The government estimates that 44% of operators in that category will see a fee reduction and another 53% only a £22 increase.

Personal licences, supplementary operating licences and single-machine permits are set to increase by 25%. The same headline uplift applies to applications to vary an operating licence and to changes of corporate control. First annual fees remain charged at 75% of the applicable annual fee.

Those amounts are licence and regulatory charges, not gambling duty. Operators used the consultation to point to the cumulative effect of tax changes, the statutory levy and other costs. Combining them may explain commercial pressure, but each instrument has a different legal basis and should remain separately labelled.

The government says the Commission is operating with annual deficits of about £4m. Even with the 25% increase, it expects the regulator to identify at least £8m in efficiency savings over the next five years. The new fee income is therefore not presented as a complete answer to the funding gap.

Illegal-market work also has another funding stream. The response points to £26m of additional Treasury funding over three years to scale disruption and deterrence activity. Because the 25% fee decision has no ringfence, that Treasury allocation should not be confused with a dedicated portion of licence-fee income.

DCMS intends the changes to take effect on 1 October 2026 and says secondary legislation will amend application and annual operating-licence fees. The published annexes provide the planned numbers, while Gambling Commission pages are already directing licensees toward the October tables.

The procedural boundary remains straightforward: a government response records the chosen policy and intended date, while the implementing instrument supplies legal effect. Atlas will update the story when that legislation and the final live fee tables can be checked together.