The United Kingdom Gambling Commission was established as a regulatory entity in 2014. Before this, the UKGC was mainly working with the regulation and management of the offline gambling within the United Kingdom. When the UK government started taxing the online operators for income, the UKGC were allowed to decide which operators can accept the players from the UK and those who cannot. The operators needed to follow the professional and legal standards in order to qualify for this.
Jurisdiction
Gambling is legal in many countries in the Caribbean, most of the countries making up the European Union and a few provinces in Canada.
Basic Information
The United Kingdom Gambling Commission was created in 2005 and received its full powers in 2007. The body covers many areas of the offline gambling and also complete remote gaming. They came up with licensing procedures for all the online gaming websites located in the UK. They were then required to pay the taxes and for the licenses in order to be able to continue to operate from the UK.
The UK Gambling Commission was quite serious and created a procedure for the disgruntled players to file a dispute against an operator. The players first have to reach out to the site. Every step has to be recorded in writing and a log of the same should be maintained. If the player is not happy with the resolution, they can bring it up to an Alternative Dispute Resolution party which will then settle the dispute. After this, if the complainant is still not happy, he/she will have to approach the civil court.
Some good news
Since a license vets the company thoroughly, unreliable individuals are eliminated from the industry. In this manner, remote gaming businesses with a UK gaming license provide the players with many good offers and advantages when compared to those operating illegally.
The UK Gambling Commission keeps an eye and reviews the policies for fairness and on the software used by the companies. The sites need to maintain the player funds separately from the cash used to run the business. The Advertising Standards Authority, in an attempt to guarantee fairness, reviews the marketing procedures.
The Bottom Line
In 2014, the UK Gambling Commission decided that every area of gaming must require a specific license. For example, sports betting, bingo, poker, casino games, and the lotteries. The companies also had to pay 15% tax on the gross revenue by gaming. This led many sites to close down and take their business elsewhere rather than get a license. Others decided to get a license for just one area of gaming.
Yet other companies chose to let their customers pay their taxes for them! A notable example is how PokerStars stopped the VIP payouts to the players quoting new regulations as the reason. It was later amended.
In conclusion, it is legal for the UK citizens to gamble on the internet as long as they are following the UKGC’s main rules. They are that the person should be over 18 years of age and that he or she is playing at a site which carries a license from the United Kingdom Gambling Commission.
Regulated Casinos
As one of the biggest regulating authorities in the world in the online casino space there are many casinos that want to get the seal of approval of the UKGC. Here are the ones we really like:
