The UK Government is set to introduce new betting restrictions this week: Players under 25 will no longer be able to play online slots for more than £2 per spin. The betting restrictions are expected to cost online casinos in the UK millions of dollars, as a previous study by the UK Government has shown.
Currently, players in the UK can spend as they wish when playing online slots at legal online casinos. Government will announce the new betting limits next Friday.
Introducing new betting limits means that players under the age of 25 will be able to place a maximum of 2 bets per spin, while players over the age of 25 will have to deal with betting limits, albeit with a little more leeway. These gamblers can bet up to €5 per spin on online slots.
This limit is one of the measures in the new White Paper that is out for consultation; it was originally reported that this measure would be implemented in early April 2023.
At that point the UK Government had not revealed the content of the White Paper; at the end of April 2023, the long-awaited UK White Paper was indeed published. A few months later, in July 2023, the Government launched the consultation period for the new Gambling Bill.
The Government further tightened the rules by proposing a five times bet limit per spin for players over the age of 25. At an earlier stage, there was talk of a limit of 15 times per spin.
In the White Paper, the Government calculated that removing the player bet limit would cost the UK gambling industry between £135 million and £185 million. This calculation set the betting limit at £8.50 and £15, the average of the two limits proposed above.
These betting limits of £2 and £5 respectively would place an even greater financial burden on gambling companies. Online casinos will lose hundreds of millions of pounds.
