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Request date: 12 August 2026
This version was printed or saved on: 15 September 2026
Online version: https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/about-us/freedomofinformation/overseas-operators
This request concerns the legal and regulatory consequences of to consumers in Great Britain without holding the operating licence required by the Gambling Act 2005.
For the period 1 November 2014 to the date of this request, please provide the following recorded information held by the Gambling Commission.
Any policy papers, briefing notes, board or committee papers,internal guidance or other recorded analysis concerning whether gambling contracts entered into between consumers in Great Britain and overseas operators without the required Gambling Commission operating licence are void,unenforceable or otherwise affected by the operator's unlawful provision of gambling facilities.
Any policy papers, briefing notes, internal guidance or other recorded analysis concerning whether consumers may recover stakes, deposits or gambling losses paid to overseas operators that were not licensed to provide gambling facilities to consumers in Great Britain.
Any recorded consideration of the application of the principles of illegality and/or restitution to such transactions, including any recorded consideration of Patel v Mirza [2016] UKSC 42 or subsequent relevant UK jurisprudence.
Any recorded consideration, briefing or analysis of court judgments from Germany, Austria, Malta, Curaçao, the Court of Justice of the European Union or other European jurisdictions concerning recovery of gambling losses from operators that lacked the licence required to provide gambling services in the consumer's jurisdiction.
This includes any recorded consideration of whether comparable legal or policy issues arise in Great Britain.
Any correspondence, briefing papers, meeting records or recorded discussions between the Gambling Commission and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport concerning:
Any recorded consideration of bringing, supporting, funding,facilitating or intervening in litigation intended to clarify:
Any recorded policy or analysis considering whether allowing anunlicensed operator to retain stakes, deposits or gambling losses obtained from consumers in Great Britain is consistent with the Commission's enforcement objectives, including the objective of eliminating financial gain or benefit arising from non-compliance.
Any policy papers, briefing notes, correspondence, meeting records or other recorded information concerning the role of banks, payment institutions, electronic money institutions, card schemes, Open Banking providers, payment initiation service providers, acquiring banks or other payment intermediaries in processing payments between consumers in Great Britain and illegal or unlicensed gambling operators.
Any recorded consideration of whether banks or payment service providers should provide consumers with a dispute, charge back, refund or other recovery mechanism where payments were made for gambling facilities which the operator was not legally entitled to provide to that consumer in Great Britain.
For clarity, this concerns the legality of the underlying gambling service rather than claims that the payment itself was unauthorised.
Any recorded consideration of consumer redress relating to historic payments made to illegal or unlicensed gambling operators before the operator was identified, blocked, disrupted or otherwise subject to enforcement action.
This includes any consideration of whether financial institutions or payment providers should:
Any recorded consideration of whether ordinary card-scheme chargeback deadlines or other payment-dispute time limits provide adequate consumer protection where an operator's unlawful status is discovered only after those time limits have expired.
Any correspondence, meeting records, briefing notes or recorded discussions concerning the matters described in sections 8-11 between the Gambling Commission and any of the following:
Any recorded policy consideration of whether the Commission's strategy towards illegal online gambling should address not only prospective disruption of payment facilities but also the financial proceeds already obtained from consumers through unlawful gambling activity.
Exempt information
I recognise that some responsive information may engage exemptionsunder the Freedom of Information Act, including information subject to legal professional privilege.
Where substantive material is withheld, I would nevertheless askthe Commission, insofar as the Act permits, to provide:
I am not seeking disclosure of legally privileged advice where the Act lawfully permits that information to be withheld. One purpose of this request is to establish whether and to what extent these issues have been considered by the Commission, as well as obtaining any substantive information which can properly be disclosed.
Section 12 and advice and assistance
If the Commission considers that complying with the request in its present form would exceed the appropriate cost limit under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act, please do not simply reject the request in its entirety.
Please provide advice and assistance under section 16 identifying which parts of the request can be answered within the cost limit and how the remaining elements could reasonably be narrowed while retaining the substantive purpose of the request.
I would be content for the Commission to prioritise existing policy papers, legal/policy briefings, board or committee papers and correspondence with DCMS, FCA, PSR and FOS if this would materially reduce the search burden.
Please provide the information electronically.
Thank you for your request which has been processed under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).
In your email you have requested information concerning the legal and regulatory consequences of overseas operators providing remote gambling facilities to consumers in Great Britain without holding the operating licence required by the Gambling Act 2005. For the period 1 November 2014 to the date of this request, you have requested the following recorded information:
Any policy papers, briefing notes, board or committee papers, internal guidance or other recorded analysis concerning whether gambling contracts entered into between consumers in Great Britain and overseas operators without the required Gambling Commission operating licence are void, unenforceable or otherwise affected by the operator's unlawful provision of gambling facilities.
Any policy papers, briefing notes, internal guidance or other recorded analysis concerning whether consumers may recover stakes, deposits or gambling losses paid to overseas operators that were not licensed to provide gambling facilities to consumers in Great Britain.
Any recorded consideration of the application of the principles of illegality and/or restitution to such transactions, including any recorded consideration of Patel v Mirza [2016] UKSC 42 or subsequent relevant UK jurisprudence.
Any recorded consideration, briefing or analysis of court judgments from Germany, Austria, Malta, Curaçao, the Court of Justice of the European Union or other European jurisdictions concerning recovery of gambling losses from operators that lacked the licence required to provide gambling services in the consumer's jurisdiction.
This includes any recorded consideration of whether comparable legal or policy issues arise in Great Britain.
Any correspondence, briefing papers, meeting records or recorded discussions between the Gambling Commission and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport concerning:
Any recorded consideration of bringing, supporting, funding, facilitating or intervening in litigation intended to clarify:
Any recorded policy or analysis considering whether allowing an unlicensed operator to retain stakes, deposits or gambling losses obtained from consumers in Great Britain is consistent with the Commission's enforcement objectives, including the objective of eliminating financial gain or benefit arising from non-compliance.
Any policy papers, briefing notes, correspondence, meeting records or other recorded information concerning the role of banks, payment institutions, electronic money institutions, card schemes, Open Banking providers, payment initiation service providers, acquiring banks or other payment intermediaries in processing payments between consumers in Great Britain and illegal or unlicensed gambling operators.
Any recorded consideration of whether banks or payment service providers should provide consumers with a dispute, chargeback, refund or other recovery mechanism where payments were made for gambling facilities which the operator was not legally entitled to provide to that consumer in Great Britain.
For clarity, this concerns the legality of the underlying gambling service rather than claims that the payment itself was unauthorised.
Any recorded consideration of consumer redress relating to historic payments made to illegal or unlicensed gambling operators before the operator was identified, blocked, disrupted or otherwise subject to enforcement action.
This includes any consideration of whether financial institutions or payment providers should:
Any recorded consideration of whether ordinary card-scheme chargeback deadlines or other payment-dispute time limits provide adequate consumer protection where an operator's unlawful status is discovered only after those time limits have expired.
Any correspondence, meeting records, briefing notes or recorded discussions concerning the matters described in sections 8-11 between the Gambling Commission and any of the following:
Any recorded policy consideration of whether the Commission’s strategy towards illegal online gambling should address not only prospective disruption of payment facilities but also the financial proceeds already obtained from consumers through unlawful gambling activity.
Response
The Gambling Commission refuse to proceed with your request under section 14(1) (vexatious requests) of the FOIA. Our considerations for relying on the section 14(1) exemption are detailed below.
Section 14(1)
Firstly, Section 14(1) states:
“Section 1(1) does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the request is vexatious.”
This exemption is designed to protect public authorities, particularly in terms of resources, by allowing authorities to refuse any requests which have the potential to cause a disproportionate or unjustified level of disruption, irritation or stress.
In order to determine if a request is vexatious, the circumstances surrounding that request must be considered.
The word “vexatious” is not defined in FOIA. However, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) guidance defines vexatious as “manifestly unjustified, inappropriate or improper use of a formal procedure.” This definition establishes that a public authority must consider the proportionality and justification of the FOIA request in question when determining if the section 14(1) exemption applies.
The FOIA provides individuals with a greater right of access to official information in order to make public authorities more transparent and accountable. As such, it is an important constitutional right. However, the ICO also recognises that dealing with unreasonable requests can cause a strain on resources, with the potential to interfere with the delivery of other services or answering legitimate requests. Vexatious requests can also be damaging to the reputation of the legislation itself, and therefore there is an emphasis on protecting public authorities’ resources from unreasonable requests.
The ICO advise that four broad themes should be considered when determining if the section 14(1) exemption applies:
As mentioned, all circumstances of the case need to be considered in reaching an ultimate judgement as to whether the request is vexatious.
There is no obligation for a public authority to explain why the request is vexatious. The code of practice issued by the Cabinet Office under section 45 states that when refusing a request under s14(1), a public authority is not required to explain why the request is vexatious, but comments that a public authority may wish to do so as part of its duty under section 16.
Therefore, although we are not legally obliged to provide advice and assistance where a request is vexatious, we have decided to explain our considerations for refusing the request as follows.
The Burden of Complying with the Request
In accordance with ICO guidance, a single FOIA request taken in isolation may be vexatious solely on the grounds of burden. That is, where complying with the request would place a grossly oppressive burden on a public authority’s resources which outweighs any value or serious purpose the request may have.
Under the section 12 exemption, you can refuse a request if it would cost more than a set limit to find and extract the requested information. Whilst the Commission has considered applying the section 12 exemption to your request, we believe that the burden of complying with the request is sufficient in itself to justify characterising the request as vexatious under section 14(1).
A public authority can apply section 14(1) where the amount of time required to review and prepare the information for disclosure would impose a grossly oppressive burden on the organisation. This includes the cost and effort associated with considering exemptions or redacting exempt information.
There is a high threshold for refusing a request under this exemption. We believe that we have a viable case to refuse this request on the following grounds:
The scope of your request covers all recorded information, including information such as correspondence, policies, considerations, meeting papers and guidance, for 13 different areas in relation to the subject matter. The date range for your request was also taken into account, as you have requested the information from 1 November 2014 to present date.
We would therefore be required to review large volumes of information stored across several systems, including mailboxes, in order to identify whether we hold any recorded information falling within the scope of your request. To identify, review and edit the volume of complex information across a 12-year period would generate a significant workload for the Commission resulting in a diversion of resources, particularly as different individuals across the Commission will need to be contacted for their assistance to action your request.
There are also concerns around potentially exempt information that we would need to consider for disclosure to the public at large. If we decide that an exemption is engaged, we would then be required to redact the information which would also generate a significant workload for the Commission.
As you are aware, public authorities have a duty to respond to FOIA requests within the statutory deadline of twenty working days. The diversion and strain on resources caused by answering your request will therefore have the potential to interfere with the delivery of other services in the immediate term.
Public Interest in the Subject
The public interest in the subject matter of a request is a consideration that too needs to be balanced against the resource implications of the request.
The Commission recognises that there is a legitimate public interest in promoting the transparency of the Commission and in making information available to the public. Further to this, the quality of advice and the content of deliberations by officials may improve if there was an expectation that the information would be made publicly available.
We recognise that the subject of your request is a live matter of public interest which is the reason that the Commission routinely provides updates to the public about its regulatory actions. It considers that the public interest in transparency, accountability, and public awareness of how the Commission handles regulatory concerns is therefore met by this level of disclosure.
In order to be of some assistance, the Commission’s approach to tackling unlicensed gambling is available on our website, here: Blog - Unlicensed Gambling – Our approach to tackling unlicensed gambling (opens in new tab).
The Gambling Commission have also published a four-part series on illegal online gambling. The series, launched in 2025, set out to improve understanding of consumer engagement with illegal online gambling, the risks it poses, and the actions being taken to disrupt it. The third chapter focuses on the disruption of the market, including the categories of third-party organisations the Commission engaged with and some of the metrics used to assess the effectiveness of this work. In order to be of assistance, please see the following information available on the Gambling Commission website:
• Summary of disruption activity (opens in new tab)
• Case studies (opens in new tab)
• New tactics coming into use (opens in new tab)
• Conclusion and looking ahead (opens in new tab)
There is an expectation of confidence in much of the Commission’s work, particularly in relation to intelligence, investigations and discussions concerning illegal gambling markets.
The Commission has robust and effective processes and procedures in place which are utilised as part of our strategy to tackling illegal markets. These procedures and processes have been put in place to minimise the risk of a product being offered without an appropriate licence. It could seriously impact the Commission’s investigation process, if details of what information it uses to inform its regulatory activities became known; this is strongly not in the public interest as it would impair the Commission’s ability to regulate effectively.
This, in conjunction with balancing the public interest against the resource implications of your request which have been discussed above, we conclude that the section 14(1) exemption applies.
Therefore, the Commission determines that continuing to respond to your request would impose a grossly oppressive burden on the Commission and would cause a disproportionate level of disruption to its resources, diverting staff time away from carrying out its regulatory functions.
If you are unhappy with the service you have received in relation to your Freedom of Information request you are entitled to an internal review of our decision. You should write to FOI Team, Gambling Commission, 4th floor, Victoria Square House, Victoria Square, Birmingham, B2 4BP or by reply to this email.
Please note, internal review requests should be made within 40 working days of the initial response. Requests made outside this timeframe will not be processed.
If you are not content with the outcome of our review, you may then apply directly to the Information Commissioner (ICO) for a decision. Generally, the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have already exhausted the review procedure provided by the Gambling Commission.
It should be noted that if you wish to raise a complaint with the ICO about the Commission’s handling of your request for information, then you are required to do so within six weeks of receiving your final response or last substantive contact with us.
The ICO can be contacted at: The Information Commissioner’s Office (opens in new tab), Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.
Information Management Team
Gambling Commission