Risk factors
UKGC presses ahead with phased financial risk assessments
BGC says it is “deeply disappointed and frustrated” by the FRA plan.
In +More: Coolbet exits Alberta ahead of regulated launch.
North Carolina becomes the third state to tax prediction markets.
New Jersey prepares Supreme Court push in Kalshi case.
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Pressing on
FRA-ed knot: The UK Gambling Commission has confirmed it will introduce financial risk assessments for high-spending online customers, but has opted for a staged rollout beginning at higher thresholds than those planned for the final regime.
The first phase will apply only to the largest operators and will be triggered when customers aged 25 and over exceed £5,000 in net deposits during a rolling 24-hour period.
For customers under 25, whom the regulator classifies as a higher-risk group, the initial threshold will be £2,500 over the same period.
Frictional accounts: The Commission said this level of spending is reached by fewer than 0.5% of customers. It has not set a start date, saying the timetable will be confirmed after implementation groups involving operators, credit reference agencies and other stakeholders have been established over the summer.
The decision follows consultation and a pilot testing whether credit reference agency (CRA) data could identify high-spending customers experiencing significant financial difficulties without requiring payslips, bank statements or other documents.
According to the Commission, 97% of customers spending above the proposed thresholds could be assessed “easily and frictionlessly,” compared with the 80% anticipated in the government’s 2023 Gambling Act review White Paper.
It estimates that fewer than 3% of accounts will undergo an assessment and fewer than one in 1,000 will be unable to receive one through the standard process.
In those exceptional cases, operators will be expected to confirm the customer’s identity and may need to use other methods, including open banking or document requests.
Scoreless: The assessments will not examine income or calculate what an individual can afford to gamble. Instead, they will use CRA information to identify signs of current or worsening financial difficulty, such as defaults, significant arrears, debt-management plans or bankruptcy.
The checks will not affect customers’ credit scores.
Nanny: The Commission said high-spending gamblers are between two and four times more likely than the general population to have a debt management plan and between two and five times more likely to have recorded a default during the previous 12 months.
Without intervention, financially vulnerable customers could continue receiving gambling marketing and promotional offers.
Operators will be expected to consider the assessment alongside everything else known about the customer and take proportionate action where necessary.
Interventions could include reducing marketing, encouraging or imposing deposit limits, or stronger measures where the overall evidence indicates greater risk.
Interim manager: However, the regulator has offered the industry some enforcement protection during the opening stages. It will not take action solely because an operator failed to act following an assessment, although all existing social responsibility and license requirements will continue to apply.
That approach creates an implementation and learning period in which the Commission, operators and credit agencies can refine the system before lower thresholds are introduced.
At full implementation, assessments will be triggered for customers aged 25 and over who deposit more than £1,000 net in 24 hours or £3,000 over a rolling 90-day period.
The equivalent thresholds for customers under 25 will be £750 over 24 hours or £2,000 over 90 days. Thresholds for interim stages have yet to be determined.
Balancing act: Acting UKGC CEO Sarah Gardner said the model would allow operators to support high-spending customers in financial difficulty while reducing unnecessary document requests for customers who are not at risk.
Gambling minister Baroness Twycross welcomed the phased approach but said it must protect vulnerable people without creating unnecessary burdens for consumers or the industry.
Naysayers: The Betting & Gaming Council (BGC) said it was “deeply disappointed and frustrated” that the Commission had decided to proceed despite concerns raised by operators, racing, parliamentarians and customers.
BGC CEO Grainne Hurst argued that delaying implementation, raising the opening thresholds and abandoning the original timetable amounted to an acknowledgement that industry concerns were justified.
She said questions surrounding the reliability of credit-reference data, consumer impact and the practical operation of the assessments remained unresolved.
Inconsistent: The BGC claimed the pilot produced inconsistent results between credit reference agencies, meaning the same customer could potentially receive different outcomes depending on the provider.
It also criticized the Commission for proceeding before publishing a full evaluation of the pilot.
Hurst challenged the regulator’s description of the process as frictionless, warning that incorrect flags could lead to account restrictions, document requests or demands for open-banking access.
She repeated the industry’s argument that intrusive or unreliable checks could push customers towards unlicensed operators.
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+More
Coolbet will cease operations in Alberta ahead of the province’s regulated commercial iGaming launch on July 13. The operator has stopped new registrations and deposits, with platform access ending July 12. Customers have until August 31 to withdraw balances. Alberta requires would-be licensees to end unregulated activity, with enforcement expected against gray-market operators continuing without approval after launch.
Konami Gaming has become the first gaming equipment manufacturer to submit a manufacturer license application to Japan’s Casino Regulatory Commission. Konami said the early filings reflect its commitment to Japan’s regulatory framework ahead of the country’s first planned integrated resort, due to open in 2030.
Star Entertainment will receive an A$33m ($22.9m) rebate from the Australian Commissioner of Taxation under a court settlement linked to its discontinued casino junket operations. The agreement also requires Star to pay an A$55m fee for the year ending June 30, 2026. The dispute covered tax assessments and rebate claims across the 2013-20 period after prolonged disagreement with authorities.
Moving home: Betr will move its Australian operations and headquarters from the Northern Territory to Tasmania after securing a new five-year license from the Tasmanian Liquor and Gaming Commission. The sportsbook said Tasmania better supports its long-term strategy and wagering priorities. Once the transition is complete, Betr intends to terminate its Northern Territory license, shifting its regulatory base to Tasmania.
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NC prediction tax
Tax capture: North Carolina is set to become the latest state to tax prediction market activity after Gov. Josh Stein signed a $34bn budget for fiscal 2026 that includes a 6% levy on the net trading fee revenue generated by platform operators.
The measure places North Carolina alongside Kentucky and Illinois in attempting to capture tax revenue from the fast-growing prediction markets sector.
Platforms including Kalshi and Polymarket allow users to trade contracts linked to the outcomes of real-world events, including elections and sporting contests.
Squeeze: The tax forms part of Senate Bill 257, which also raises North Carolina’s sports-betting tax rate from 18% to 23%. The budget additionally gives state revenue officials new authority to audit sports-bettors’ records.
The package was agreed following more than a year of negotiations between lawmakers over how to balance the state budget.
Republican legislative leaders announced a compromise last week amid warnings that North Carolina could face a combined $2.8bn deficit over the next two years.
State officials are seeking additional revenue as reductions in personal and corporate income taxes continue to take effect.
Reckless: The final agreement delayed some future tax cuts but retained scheduled corporate tax reductions opposed by Stein.
Although the governor signed the budget, he criticized what he described as “reckless pre-programmed tax cuts for corporate shareholders and the wealthy.”
His office did not comment specifically on the prediction markets provision.
North Carolina’s move comes amid a wider legal and regulatory dispute over whether event contracts should be treated as federally regulated derivatives or as gambling products subject to state licensing and taxation.
Kalshi filed a lawsuit against Illinois in June after that state incorporated prediction markets into its sports-wagering tax regime.
Neither Kalshi nor Polymarket immediately commented on North Carolina’s new levy.
The measure adds to growing state efforts to impose taxes and regulatory controls on prediction market operators despite their federal oversight claims.
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NJ SCOTUS push
Let’s push things forward: New Jersey has taken the first formal step toward asking the US Supreme Court to review its defeat in the state’s jurisdictional battle with Kalshi.
The Supreme Court docket shows Justice Samuel Alito granted state officials an extension until August 4 to file a petition for a writ of certiorari, although New Jersey had sought an additional 60 days.
The filing does not mean the justices will hear the case, but it confirms the state is actively considering an appeal.
Swap shop: The potential petition follows the Third Circuit Court of Appeals’ 2-1 ruling in April upholding a preliminary injunction that prevents New Jersey’s Division of Gaming Enforcement from applying state gambling laws to Kalshi’s sports event contracts.
The majority concluded the contracts qualify as “swaps” traded on a CFTC-licensed designated contract market, placing them within the CFTC’s exclusive jurisdiction.
It found the Commodity Exchange Act likely preempted New Jersey’s sports-betting laws and constitutional restrictions.
Minority report: Judge Jane Roth dissented, arguing Kalshi’s markets were virtually indistinguishable from wagers offered by regulated sportsbooks and that gambling has traditionally fallen within state authority.
She rejected the majority’s view that registering as a derivatives exchange transformed sportsbook-style bets into federally protected financial products.
New Jersey’s extension application points to similar disputes moving through the Fourth, Sixth and Ninth Circuits, as well as the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.
State lawyers said forthcoming decisions could establish a split between courts and strengthen the case for Supreme Court intervention.
They also claimed that more than 11 district-court decisions had taken an approach contrary to the Third Circuit majority.
A widening gyre: The stakes extend well beyond New Jersey. A Supreme Court ruling for Kalshi could cement a federal framework allowing CFTC-regulated exchanges to offer sports contracts without state gaming licenses, taxes or product restrictions.
A ruling for New Jersey could preserve states’ ability to treat those contracts as gambling and impose the same controls applied to sportsbooks.
For now, the immediate date is August 4, when New Jersey must decide whether to file its petition.
+More predictions
Kalshi has appealed to the Second Circuit after Southern District of New York Judge Analisa Torres denied its request for a preliminary injunction blocking state gambling enforcement. Torres found New York’s gambling laws, as applied to Kalshi’s sports event contracts, were not preempted by federal commodities law. The decision keeps state action alive while the case proceeds.
Calendar
Jul 8-11: NCLGS summer meeting, San Diego
Jul 22-24: NCPG Annual Conference, Nashville
Sep 21-24: NASPL, Orlando
Oct 15: Gaming in Spain, Madrid
Sep 29-Oct 1: Regulation and compliance track, SBC Lisbon
Nov 10: Gaming in Germany, Berlin
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