Betting shops disappearing: gambling companies sound the alarm
Paddy Power is closing 57 betting shops in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Rising costs and changing customer behaviour mean that the company can no longer keep the shops profitable.
Paddy Power is closing 57 betting shops in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Rising costs and changing customer behaviour mean that the company can no longer keep the shops profitable.
The case in question concerns an English semi-professional player who, after accumulating almost a thousand bets over ten years, has been fined what is now the heaviest fine ever imposed on a non-league player.
Something strange is happening in England and Wales: almost half of all physical gaming halls were not inspected at all last year. This is according to figures from the BBC. They requested data via the British equivalent of a Freedom of Information request and came to a striking conclusion.
The British gambling authority (UKGC) will introduce mandatory deposit limits for all online gambling platforms from 2026. The regulator wants to protect gamblers from excessive spending and gambling addiction. This measure is part of a broader reform of gambling legislation.
Adam Lopez, 39, a forklift driver from Mattishall in the United Kingdom, felt like a king at the beginning of July. He scratched off a £12.40 ticket, saw the amount appear on his screen, and within seconds, he had more than £1 million in his account. That’s over €1.15 million.
Artificial intelligence is now at the heart of the gambling industry’s compliance mechanisms. But behind the promise of efficiency and automation, the UKGC is sounding the alarm: these technologies, poorly managed or misunderstood, could undermine the fight against money laundering and the protection of players.
You’d think they’d get the message by now, but no. While millions of fans were glued to their telly for the Premier League opening weekend, gambling adverts were flying around everywhere. Shirts, boards, stadium walls, interviews – everything seemed to be about betting.
The debate about gambling advertisements on London’s public transport is in full swing again. The advertisements are particularly prominent in the Underground and on buses. But more and more people believe this must stop.
Imagine: you are 21 years old, playing for a professional club in England, you have worked hard to get there, and then you ruin it all by… betting on football matches. That is exactly what Osmon Foyo, a Dutch footballer who plays for AFC Wimbledon, did. Between October 2023 and March 2025, he placed 252 bets on football matches. And no, that is not allowed.
The UKGC is facing an explosive case in London’s High Court. Media tycoon Richard Desmond is challenging the award of the national lottery licence to Allwyn, a decision that raises questions of transparency, governance and justice.
The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) recently published the second part of its report on consumer engagement with illegal online gambling.
Skins gambling is gaining ground and causing concern among the authorities. Behind these virtual objects exchanged in video games lies a market akin to online casinos, where minors are on the front line. Faced with a cross-border phenomenon that is difficult to control, British regulators are sounding the alarm.
In an unprecedented move, GGPoker has decided to open a new path for its former banned players. The operator, one of the giants of online poker, has just launched the Olive Branch initiative, offering permanently banned players the opportunity to request reinstatement.
In the United Kingdom, a simple promotional voucher was enough to put William Hill in the regulators’ crosshairs. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that a voucher offering £5 worth of gambling exerted undue pressure on players by imposing too short a time limit to take advantage of it.
The landscape of gambling regulation in the United Kingdom is about to undergo a major change. The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has confirmed the upcoming closure of the Advisory Board for Safer Gambling (ABSG), an advisory body that has had a profound impact on public policy on responsible gambling.
It sounds innocent: you order a meal at McDonald’s, peel off a sticker and have a chance to win free chips, a drink or even a big prize. For millions of young people, this feels like a harmless game. But experts warn that these promotions are much more like gambling than most people realise.