UK Gambling Act Review: What the New Gambling Policy Commission Could Mean for Online Poker

The law that governs every hand you play on a UK-licensed poker site was written in 2005. Back then, most people played on a desktop client and nobody had heard of a Spin & Go, a crypto deposit or a prediction market. Twenty-one years later, someone is finally taking the whole thing apart to see whether it still works.

On 9 November 2026, a new Gambling Policy Commission (GPC) launched a full review of the Gambling Act 2005. It’s chaired by Cambridge economist Professor Jagjit Chadha and will look at tax, the illegal market, how payments and websites are policed, and whether the UK needs a brand-new Gambling Act. Here’s what the UK Gambling Act review actually is, what it isn’t, and what it could change for online poker players in Britain and beyond.

Quick summary

• Who: Gambling Policy Commission, chaired by Prof. Jagjit Chadha (Cambridge). The chief economist is Prof. James Reade (Reading).
• Status: Independent, not a government body. It makes recommendations, not law.
• Launched: 9 November 2026
• Call for evidence closes: 12 February 2027
• Final report: Planned for 2028
• Big topics: Tax, the statutory levy, the illegal market, payment and website enforcement, prediction markets, harm evidence
• For poker today: Nothing changes yet. UK poker remains legal and your winnings remain tax-free.

First, an Important Clarification: This Isn’t the Government

Some headlines make it sound as though the UK government has set up a commission to rewrite the law. That’s not quite right. The GPC describes itself as independent, and trade outlet SBC News pointed out that because it isn’t a government body, it has no direct power over policy. Its influence will depend on how strong its evidence is and whether ministers at DCMS and the Treasury choose to act on it.

That matters for poker players. A report in 2028 is a starting point for new legislation, not the legislation itself. Realistically, any new Gambling Act would arrive several years after that. So if you’ve seen social media posts claiming “UK poker is about to change”, treat them with caution.

Still, this review deserves attention. Chadha ran the National Institute of Economic and Social Research from 2016 to 2024. He has also worked at the Bank of England and advised HM Treasury. A commission led by a well-connected economist, with a remit heavy on tax and market structure, is exactly the kind of body whose recommendations get read in Whitehall.

What the Commission Will Review

According to the commission’s launch material, as reported by iGaming Business and Card Player, the review covers five main areas. I’ve added what each one means at the poker table.

Review area	What the GPC will look at	Why poker players should care
Tax	How recent duty changes affect operators and consumers, and how tax interacts with other policy	Poker rooms pay Remote Gaming Duty on rake. Higher tax tends to squeeze rakeback and promotions
Statutory levy	How the levy funds research, prevention and treatment, and whether a Sports Betting Levy should replace part of betting duty	Another cost for operators that run poker alongside casino and sports
Illegal market	Scale of offshore and unlicensed gambling, and enforcement through payments, websites, search engines, social media and app stores	Directly affects UK players who use unlicensed or “not on GAMSTOP” poker sites
Future-proofing the Act	Whether a 2005 framework can handle new tech, products and behaviour, including prediction markets	Could shape how new formats, crypto payments and app-based play are regulated
Harm evidence and coordination	Why harm evidence is so contested, whether policy is coordinated across government, and possible civil liability and treatment duties	Could influence future affordability checks, deposit limits and account restrictions

One thing worth noting: advertising rules come up again and again in the wider debate. Card Player mentions two examples: the proposed ban on illegal operators’ ads on football shirts, and the April 2025 ruling against a PokerStars Instagram ad. But neither Card Player nor iGaming Business lists advertising as a formal part of the commission’s remit. I’d expect it to come up in submissions anyway.

The Real-Time Picture: UK Gambling by the Numbers

To understand why this review is happening now, it helps to look at the figures the commission will be working with.

Metric	Figure	Source
Betting and gaming duties collected, 2025/26	About £3.8–3.9 billion	HMRC, via Card Player and iGaming Business
Gambling’s contribution to UK GVA (2024)	Around £5 billion	DCMS estimate
Jobs supported	About 75,000	DCMS estimate
Remote Gaming Duty (covers online poker)	40% since 1 April 2026 (was 21%)	GOV.UK
Remote betting duty	15% now, rising to 25% from 1 April 2027	GOV.UK
Online gamblers who used an illegal site in the past four weeks	2.5%	Gambling Commission survey
Extra funding to fight the illegal market	£26 million over three years	Gambling Commission / HM Government

Two of those numbers matter most for poker: the 40% Remote Gaming Duty and the 2.5% illegal-site figure. Together they describe the tension the commission has to resolve. Tax the regulated market too hard and some players drift offshore. Police offshore sites too loosely and the regulated market loses out.

Tax: The Issue Poker Players Feel Without Noticing

Here’s the part most recreational players never see. Under UK rules, online poker counts as “remote gaming”. The poker room takes rake from cash game pots and a fee from your tournament buy-in, and that money is what gets taxed. Since April, the rate on it has nearly doubled, from 21% to 40%.

You won’t see a line on your screen that says “tax”. You’ll see it in other ways:

• Rakeback and loyalty schemes become less generous or harder to reach.
• Welcome bonuses shrink, or get paid in tickets instead of cash.
• Overlays and guarantees get trimmed, because overlays cost the operator real money.
• Network consolidation speeds up as operators look for savings. Flutter moving Betfair and Paddy Power onto the PokerStars Network this year fits that pattern.

Industry reaction so far has been mixed. Six weeks after the rise, iGaming Business reported that the expected damage hadn’t really shown up in company earnings yet. Later data from Blask suggested sports-led brands were gaining share from casino-heavy ones. Poker sits awkwardly in the middle. It’s taxed like casino games, but players play each other, not the house. The operator only keeps the rake, which is a much thinner slice than what a slot machine keeps.

The poker-specific argument: If poker operators and players make submissions, the strongest case is simple: poker isn’t played against the house. A 40% tax on rake hits a thin margin, and the operator can’t recover the cost by changing the odds. So it ends up coming out of rakeback and promotions. Whether the commission treats poker separately is one of the most important questions for the UK game.

One reassurance: UK players still pay no tax on gambling winnings, and nothing in the commission’s remit suggests that will change. This is about what operators pay.

The Illegal Market: Blocking Sites and Payments

This is where the review could have the most visible effect on poker players. Unlicensed poker sites have long marketed themselves to UK players with bigger bonuses, crypto deposits and “no GAMSTOP” messaging. The commission will examine how well enforcement works through payments, websites, search engines, social media and app stores.

The Gambling Commission isn’t waiting for 2028. It’s already doing several things:

• It is getting £26 million over three years to tackle illegal gambling.
• It works with banks and card networks to cut off payments to illegal sites.
• It has referred hundreds of thousands of illegal gambling web addresses to search engines for removal.
• It is gaining powers to get court orders that force internet providers to block illegal sites.
• It is watching crypto payments more closely, because many offshore sites switched to crypto once card payments got harder.

There’s a fair counterpoint in the debate. Ismail Vali, quoted by Card Player, argues that the share of people who say they use illegal sites doesn’t tell you how much gambling money actually goes to them. The commission will have to weigh disagreements like that. It’s part of why the commission says evidence on harm and the black market is so contested.

What this means for you

If you play on an unlicensed site from the UK, expect it to get harder over the next few years: blocked websites, declined card payments, and apps disappearing from app stores. More importantly, an offshore site gives you none of the UK protections:

• no UK process for complaints and disputes
• no guarantee your money is kept separate from the company’s own funds
• no GAMSTOP protection

If a site freezes your balance, there’s very little you can do.

Key Dates: What Happens Next

Date	Event
2005	Gambling Act passed
April 2023	“High Stakes” white paper on gambling reform for the digital age
October 2025	Statutory gambling levy begins
1 April 2026	Remote Gaming Duty rises from 21% to 40%, and bingo duty is abolished
9 November 2026	Gambling Policy Commission launches its review and call for evidence
12 February 2027	Call for evidence closes
1 April 2027	Remote betting duty rises from 15% to 25%
2028	Final GPC report planned

What It Means for Poker Players Outside the UK

Britain is one of the most closely watched gambling markets in the world. When the UK changes how it taxes or polices online gambling, regulators in Europe, Africa and Asia take note. The commission might recommend taxing player-vs-player games like poker differently from games played against the house. If it does, other countries could pick up that argument. Several European markets tax poker heavily and keep their players in separate national pools, and they face the same trade-offs.

The size of player pools matters too. Most UK-facing poker rooms share their players with international networks. If UK rules push operators to cut costs or restructure, the effects can reach the games you play from other countries.

What You Should Do Right Now

1. Play on licensed sites. Check for the Gambling Commission licence number at the bottom of the site’s pages. That’s your protection.
2. Review your rakeback. With operators under tax pressure, loyalty terms change. Compare what you’re actually earning each month.
3. Use the free stuff. Daily free satellites and freerolls are usually among the last promotions operators cut, so they’re worth your time.
4. Have your say. The commission wants evidence from players too. If you’re a regular UK player, you have until 12 February 2027 to send it in.
5. Ignore the hype. No law will change because of this review until well after 2028.

Final Take

This review is overdue. The 2005 Act was written for a very different internet. Over the past three years, changes have come one at a time: the white paper, the levy and the tax rise. They’ve left a patchwork that nobody fully likes. A serious independent review led by economists is a sensible next step.

For poker, the key question is whether a skill game played between players will keep being taxed like a slot machine. If the poker community makes a clear, evidence-based case before February, this commission is the right audience. If it doesn’t, poker risks being an afterthought in a review dominated by sports betting and casino. Either way, nothing happens to your games tomorrow. This is a slow process, and it’s worth following closely.

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