Remote gambling and software technical standards (RTS) guidance

Updates to RTS effective 31 October 2025

We consulted in Autumn 2023 on changes to the remote gambling and software technical standards. All changes arising from the consultation related to RTS 12 – Financial limits, and are a combination of:

• relatively minor changes to the existing RTS wording

• ‘elevating’ some parts of the implementation guidance to requirements

• introducing new requirements and implementation guidance.

We will publish a short supplementary consultation to further consider issues that arose regarding the definitions of different types of financial limits. The provisions included in the supplementary consultation currently form part of implementation guidance 12A, and this implementation guidance will remain in place until any outcomes of the supplementary consultation are implemented.

The sections of implementation guidance 12A that have been amended following the Autumn 2023 consultation are reflected elsewhere in the revised standard and will come into effect from 31 October 2025. Numbering will be updated to accommodate changes as a result of the Autumn 2023 consultation.

The revised and new provisions include the following RTS requirements:

• all customers must be prompted to set a financial limit as early as possible and be able to set limits at any point thereafter (RTS 12A)
• financial limits must only be offered using free text and financial limits must be applied at the account level (RTS 12B)
• financial limit-setting facilities must be provided via a link on the homepage and deposit pages or screens and clearly visible and accessible, and the number of clicks or pages that must be navigated to reach these facilities must be minimised (RTS 12C)
• all customer requests to decrease a financial limit must be actioned immediately, and the previous wording of the requirements around actioning customer requests to increase limits has been strengthened (RTS 12D)
• customers must receive a prompt to review their account and transaction information, that this prompt must be provided at a minimum of six-monthly intervals, and that customers should be able to set more frequent reminders to review their account information (RTS 12D)
• setting a financial limit must be presented as the default option, and customers must take action to decline and confirm a decision not to set a limit, and customers without limits must be prompted to review this at least annually (RTS 12E).

We have also reviewed existing and introduced new implementation guidance:

• operators could offer links to tools or resources to support limit-setting
• operators could also continue to offer financial limits at the product or channel level
• operators should clearly communicate to customers how product and channel limits work and inform customers about how limits set across multiple timeframes work, if chosen by the customer
• links to limit-setting facilities from communications to customers should link directly to the facilities unless security settings require an intermediate log in
• operators should inform customers when limits will take effect, if that is not already automated or is delayed due to technical issues
• operators should monitor engagement with prompts and/or alerts to customers to review account activity, in order to inform best practice
• operators could mitigate against user error by enabling the gambling system to only receive specific monetary increments for free text limits
• guidance on how financial limits could be presented and forms of action taken to decline limit-setting, and that operators could provide information and resources to customers who choose to opt out.

The new provisions are contained in the Autumn 2023 consultation – Proposed changes to LCCP and RTS: Consultation Response.

Updates to RTS effective 17 January 2025

We consulted in 2023 on changes to the remote gambling and software technical standards (RTS).

The following sections contain new or updated requirements that came into effect on 17 January 2025.

• features which speed up the time for a result to be shown or can give the illusion of control such as ‘turbo’ or ‘slam stops’ (RTS 14E)
• autoplay (RTS 8A)
• celebrations of returns less than or equal to stake (RTS 14F)
• operator-led functionality which facilitates playing multiple simultaneous products (RTS 14C)
• display of transactions - net spend and net time information (RTS 2E and RTS 13C)
• a minimum spin speed for casino games of 5 seconds (excluding peer-to-peer poker) (RTS 14G)
• security requirements.

We have updated the supporting testing strategy to incorporate any new standards and changes made to the numbering of existing requirements as a result of this consultation.

The new provisions are contained in the updated RTS.

Updates to RTS effective 31 October 2021

We consulted in 2020 on changes to the remote gambling and software technical standards (RTS).

The following new requirements were introduced or updated for remote slots and cancelling and or reversing withdrawals was prohibited.

• features which speed up the time for a result to be shown or can give the illusion of control such as ‘turbo’ or ‘slam stops’ (RTS 14E)
• autoplay (RTS 8A)
• celebrations of returns less than or equal to stake (RTS 14F)
• operator-led functionality which facilitates playing multiple simultaneous products (RTS 14C)
• display of transactions - net spend and net time information (RTS 2E and RTS 13C)
• a minimum spin speed for slots games of 2.5 seconds (RTS 14G)
• removal of reverse withdrawals (RTS 14B).

Updates to RTS effective 1 April 2018

The following sections contain new requirements that came into effect on 1 April 2018.

• display of transactions
• gambling account history
• display of net deposits
• financial limits.

We have updated the supporting testing strategy to incorporate any new standards and changes made to the numbering of existing requirements as a result of this consultation.

Customers must be able to choose whether to accept price fluctuations that occur after their bet is requested.

From the 1 April 2018 the remote technical standards (see RTS 2C) require that operator’s systems enable customers to choose whether to accept price fluctuations (in either direction) that occur after their bet is requested.

Providing consumers with greater control and consistency

This requirement applies to both fixed odds betting and betting exchanges. It was introduced because we were aware of concerns that bets were sometimes subject to price fluctuations caused by time delays and market movements. Consumers were not always aware that event odds may be subject to price fluctuation and the way in which licensees handled fluctuations differed.

Players should be presented with options to control whether a price change should be accepted or not.

These options must be presented on a per bet basis, except in circumstances where a customer has requested a default account setting to disable price change alerts prior to bet acceptance. Where the functionality is offered at an account level the default option should not be set to accept all fluctuations.

Where a customer chooses not to accept price changes automatically any bet where the price changes must be reoffered before it is accepted. Information sufficient to explain the options to the customers should be provided.

An optimum solution would enable consumers to choose to automatically accept price movements within a particular margin range. Account level options offered to consumer could include accepting all bets with higher price, accepting all bets with shorter price or accepting all bets regardless of price movements.

This requirement does not intend to capture currency fluctuations.

Remote betting operators must ensure that their systems are compliant with these requirements.