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The milestones we plan to complete within the business plan 2026 to 2027.
Published: 21 April 2026
Last updated: 21 April 2026
This version was printed or saved on: 23 April 2026
Online version: https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/about-us/guide/business-plan-and-budget-2026-to-2027
Overview: ## Foreword
For the Gambling Commission, 2026 to 2027 represents the third and final year of our 3-year Corporate Strategy: Gambling Regulation in a Digital Age. As such this year’s Business Plan builds on the successes achieved through 2025 to 2026 and continues to focus on improving gambling regulation for all. It should also be stated that this Business Plan is only the start: we intend to build on this and publish a more detailed plan as soon as we can, once the results of the Government consultation on our Fees are published.
The Fees consultation is just one factor that means 2026 to 2027 will be a year of change, challenge and opportunity for the Commission against a backdrop of a gambling sector that is experiencing changes as well. The changes include the 2025 Budget gambling tax increases announced by the Government and continued implementation of the 2023 Gambling White Paper. As already referred to, in January 2026 our sponsoring Department, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), launched a consultation on the Commission’s Fees (opens in new tab) – the first since 2021.
Notwithstanding those changes and the associated uncertainties, our ambition remains high. The licensed gambling market in Great Britain is one of the most respected in the world. That is, in no small part, due to the Commission’s unwavering focus on making gambling safer, fairer and crime free. That focus remains, as does our commitment to collaborate with everyone who shares those goals and our commitment to doing the right thing for consumers and the wider market while allowing the industry space to innovate and grow in a compliant way. We seek compliance at the earliest opportunity and we believe we can achieve that through working with industry and like-minded stakeholders wherever we can. Everything we do in 2026 to 2027 will be rooted in these commitments and in the delivery of the priorities, as set out in our Corporate Strategy.
The last year was one of significant delivery by the Commission. We achieved more important milestones in the implementation of the Gambling Act Review. Our work to regulate the National Lottery and the implementation of the Fourth Licence saw 2 rounds of successful upgrades to the digital and retail infrastructure of the National Lottery by the operator Allwyn Entertainment Limited (Allwyn), with regulatory oversight from the Commission. We continued to drive up standards in the licensed market through proactive engagement activity on the one hand, and compliance and enforcement activity on the other. We have also further developed our approach to tackling the illegal market which saw the number of URLs of illegal sites referred to search engines rise from just under 27,000 at the start of the year to over 117,000 at the end of 2025.
Looking to the year ahead, our work to combat illegal gambling will be an important focus as we look to make an even bigger impact. The commitment made by the Government of £26 million Exchequer funding over the next 3 years, is a significant vote of confidence and strong endorsement of the work the Commission has done to date in this area. It will enable us to develop our strategic approach to preventing unlicensed operators from operating at scale, undermining the licensed British market and presenting significant risks to the consumers who gamble with unlicensed operators and so without the protections they enjoy in the licensed market. We will also use this funding to further augment our existing operational activities to disrupt and deter those who try to operate without a licence. But we also know that we cannot address the risks from the illegal market on our own. To this end, our work with DCMS, the Government’s Illegal Gambling Taskforce, industry and stakeholders in other sectors, such as finance and social media, will continue to be prioritised. We hope to see greater powers granted to us to tackle illegal websites through ongoing Government legislation.
The Statutory Levy (Levy) regime is transforming how research of gambling and the prevention and treatment of gambling harms will be funded. DCMS are responsible for the policy and decision making in relation to the Levy, with the Commission’s role being to collect the Levy, and make payments to the commissioning bodies, under DCMS' direction. The Commission is also a recipient of funding from the Levy, as part of the 20 percent assigned to research, alongside UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). We are using this to further strengthen our delivery of a robust evidence base, prioritising the themes identified in our Evidence Roadmaps.
We have worked hard this year alongside teams within DCMS and the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) to identify ways to reduce the administrative burden on those we regulate. We have set out a number of proposals for burden reduction through this work without reducing protection for consumers. We have identified potential opportunities to improve guidance to licensees, further digitise licensee services and reduce data reporting requirements for licensees. Throughout future years this area remains important to us as we work to implement existing proposals, identify new proposals and track the impacts resulting from our changes.
We remain committed to delivering against our corporate strategy in all of these areas. Once the result of the Fees consultation is known we will publish a more detailed business plan in due course which will explain more precisely how we will be able to invest in each of these areas of strategic focus and the progress we think we can make.
Given the enormous progress made to implement the measures set out in the Gambling Act Review White Paper and this year’s commitments, we anticipate that we are approaching the end of our delivery of those ambitious plans. However, consistent with our statutory duties, we will continue to advise DCMS on potential changes to legislation and respond where needed to those changes in legislation. Alongside DCMS, we will also continue our efforts to evaluate the impact the White Paper measures are having.
The Commission will continue to work in support of our legal responsibilities for the National Lottery as the Fourth Licence moves out of the implementation phase. Making sure the National Lottery is run with due propriety, that the interests of all players are protected and that returns to Good Causes are maximised will continue to guide our work in this space.
As well as the National Lottery, at the heart of our plans remain our core duties under the Gambling Act (2005). We will monitor that licensees treat consumers fairly and openly and ensure compliance at the earliest opportunity and we will continue to permit gambling where it is consistent with the Licensing Objectives. And where resources meet our ambition, we will also look to make space to support and encourage consumer focussed innovation.
In our Corporate Strategy: Gambling Regulation in a Digital Age, we set out 5 areas of strategic focus with underlying commitments. In this third year of the strategy our business plan will focus on the final delivery or further development of activity that has been in train over the course of the past 2 years. As a result of the ongoing Fees consultation, the business plan is high level in nature, but regardless of the outcome, we will remain ambitious in our plans. The plans set out here, will be scaled accordingly to affordability, when we have greater certainty on our future funding. When funding is more certain, we will be able to publish an updated plan. We will continue to develop more detailed plans, to further our core regulatory work, and also with reference to enhancing and driving forward work through the Statutory Levy funding and in tackling illegal markets.
Regulation must keep pace with industry and societal developments. Improving our data maturity and evidence base by investing in technology, improvements in data analytics and consumer research will ensure regulation remains fit for purpose.
We have identified our priority evidence gaps to be filled in our Evidence Roadmaps and will be using these as the framework for progressing and commissioning work under the Levy, this includes:
We will continue our work to deliver an enhanced experience for licensees when they need to engage with the Commission. We aim to deliver improvements to response times, greater consistency of case management and quality of service. This work forms part of our actions around reducing the administrative burden to industry. To achieve this, we need to modernise our operational systems and processes, and this year, we will continue the phased implementation and embedding of our new Case Management System (CMS).
Following confirmation of £26 million additional HM Treasury funding over the next 3 years, we will scale up, automate where appropriate, and develop our wider strategy to tackle illegal markets activity. This also further supports the alignment with our statutory duties to keep crime out of gambling and protect the young and vulnerable from harm, demonstrating our commitment to compliant growth within the licensed market by tackling and reducing unlicensed operators offering products within the GB market.
The work we did last year in terms of developing our operational response and coordinating our established networks and relationships with key law enforcement teams and regulators will be a key part of our work to tackle illegal gambling.
Our focus will grow to consider the drivers of consumer demand to the illegal market and how regulation can support innovation, aligned to the licensing objectives, that maintains the appeal of the licensed market.
We will also publish data and metrics to demonstrate impact and to provide insight into the dynamics of the illegal market.
Working with partners, a comprehensive national risk assessment for the illegal market in Britain will be published.
We will also increase the scale and impact of our enforcement and disruption activities building on our existing partnership working with government, law enforcement and other stakeholders.
The white paper High Stakes - gambling reform for the digital age (opens in new tab) published in April 2023 continues to shape the immediate policy agenda for the gambling market in Great Britain. As the gambling regulator, we made a significant number of commitments.
As we continue to deliver our commitments from the white paper, we aim to ensure that our regulation is as clear and as focused as possible, making it easier for licensees to operate compliantly at the earliest possible opportunity. This is consistent with the National Audit Office’s principles of effective regulation, the Regulators’ Code and our own Statement of Principles.
We will continue to provide expert support to Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) on the specific Government and industry-led measures set out in the white paper.
We will continue our role in collection of the statutory levy as set out in The Gambling Levy Regulations 2025 (opens in new tab).
Following completion of the financial risk pilot and the further pilot analysis phase, we will publish our response document.
We will publish the second and final part of our response to the Gaming Machine consultation on changes to gaming machine technical standards and other requirements for those licensed businesses who site gaming machines on their premises.
We will make continued progress in supporting fair and open gambling, providing an update on our commitments under the Gambling Act Review. We will support effective identity verification procedures upfront in the customer journey reducing friction for consumers and transparency to consumers on the reasons for restrictions or delays in withdrawals.
Subject to consultation, we will publish amendments to the ‘Guidance to Licensing Authorities’ in order to take account of Gambling Act Review (GAR) reforms by both government and the Commission. We will also take the opportunity to reflect relevant case law, and explore modernising the content to ensure it remains accessible, relevant and impactful for stakeholders.
Working jointly with DCMS we will publish the evaluation of GAR measures. This is being conducted by the National Centre for Social Research, to understand the individual and collective contributions to the observed outcomes and impacts. of those implemented measures within scope of the evaluation.
We intend to support consumer focussed innovation, ensuring consistency with regulatory requirements. Subject to resource, we will additionally review industry proposals to reduce regulatory administrative burdens and identify any proposals to amend regulations or improve the communication of them. This could involve provision of advice to Government on measures that could amended by means of legislation.
It is in the best interests of consumers and the public to secure the compliance of a licensee at the earliest opportunity. It is also an approach that we seek to take to meet the expectations that all regulators have under the Regulators Code. The onus to comply is on licensees and we will support compliance through more proactive activities and early interventions with licensees and reduce reliance on reactive compliance and enforcement activity.
We are clear this shift is only appropriate where licensees are making best endeavours to operate compliantly and with due regard for consumers and the public. Where they are not, we will continue to take decisive and escalating enforcement action.
We will continue to proactively engage with licensees and related parties utilising our existing networks including our Industry Forum, sector roundtables, briefings, and operator engagement forum events.
It is our responsibility, in accordance with our statutory function, core regulatory outcomes, to uphold the National Lottery duties, ensuring that the Lottery is run with all due propriety, in a way that protects consumers interests, and then ensures the maximisation of returns to good causes.
We are required to meet the contractual obligations and requirements under the Enabling Agreement for the assessment and determination of Recoverable Implementation Costs.
We have been regulating the new National Lottery operator, Allwyn, under the new Licence framework since February 2024. We have devised and implemented our regulatory approach and continue to refine this.
This year we will:
Our people are our most important asset. This year we will continue to develop our employee value proposition and embed further elements of the people and culture strategy. This ensures we can continue to attract, recruit, retain and motivate diverse, skilled people to deliver our work to make gambling safer, fairer and crime free.
We will continue to build and improve stakeholder engagement as well as further refining our communications and pro-active engagement with licensees, other regulators and our international partners.
This operational-level engagement will continue to complement the Commission's wider stakeholder engagement. Together, these strands ensure we engage at the right level, on the right issues, and in a coordinated way.
We will continue to work with Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to explore options for changing the legal framework under which licence fees are set, further to the white paper commitment. This will require a legislative vehicle for Parliament to deliver changes to the fee-setting powers in the Gambling Act 2005. We will work with DCMS towards consulting on the principles that would replace those existing powers.
At the time of publication, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) consultation on our gambling regulation fees funding was still out for consultation. Given the uncertainty this presents in our gambling regulation budget as well as the increased in other funding streams we have set our budget, at least initially, based on affordability.
Our financial framework documents reflect the principles set out within Managing Public Money and to ensure that we comply with accounting standards as set out in HM Treasury’s Financial Reporting Manual (FReM) and our Framework Document with DCMS.
For Gambling regulation, we are budgeting to receive a total income of £30.4 million of which £29.9 million is fees charged to gambling operators. Total expenditure is budgeted at £31.3 million. This is in excess of our income, and as such we will be utilising £0.9 million from our Reserves.
For the National Lottery, we are budgeting to receive £17.3 million Grant in Aid and budgeted expenditure is £17.3 million.
As announced in the Budget in November 2025, the Commission will receive funding of £26 million over the next 3 years, for work on Illegal Markets. The funding starts from April 2026, and is profiled across the years as follows: £7 million 2026 to 2027, £9 million 2027 to 2028 and £10 million 2028 to 2029.
The Statutory Levy research budget for the Commission in 2026 to 2027 is £2.8 million, which is funded from the Statutory Levy.
| Budget (£ millions) | Gambling regulation | National Lottery | Statutory Levy (Gambling Commission research) | Illegal markets | Commission Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fee income | 29.9 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 29.9 |
| Other income | 0.5 | 0.0 | 2.8 | 0.0 | 3.3 |
| Grant in Aid income from DCMS | 0.0 | 17.3 | 0.0 | 7.0 | 24.3 |
| Total income | 30.4 | 17.3 | 2.8 | 7.0 | 57.5 |
| Operating expenditure | 31.3 | 17.3 | 2.8 | 7.0 | 58.4 |
| Drawdown from reserves (subject to HM Treasury approval) | 0.9 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.9 |
Gambling regulation, National Lottery, Statutory Levy and illegal markets refer to income streams for The Commission.
| Sector | Amount (percentage) |
|---|---|
| Betting | 31.8% |
| Casino | 31.3% |
| Software | 16.1% |
| Bingo | 4.2% |
| Lottery | 6.4% |
| Machines | 5.5% |
| Arcades | 4.7% |
| Remote and/or non-remote income | Amount (percentage) |
|---|---|
| Remote | 70% |
| Non-remote | 30% |