A financial risk assessment (FRA) is a check that an online gambling operator runs when a customer's net deposits pass a set threshold, to find out whether that customer may be in financial difficulty.

The Gambling Commission confirmed the FRA thresholds on 7 July 2026. The assessment applies to remote gambling, which includes online slots and casino games. It decides whether an operator should look more closely at a high-spending account. It does not set a limit on how much a customer may spend.

How it works

An assessment starts when a customer's net deposits pass a threshold. The threshold depends on the customer's age and on the stage of the rollout.

The Commission is introducing FRAs in stages. The figures below are from its 7 July 2026 announcement.

Stage One

  • Customers aged 25 and over: £5,000 net deposits in a rolling 24-hour period.
  • Customers under 25: £2,500 net deposits in a rolling 24-hour period.
  • Stage One applies only to the largest operators.
  • Fewer than 0.5% of customers are expected to pass the £5,000 threshold.

Final stage

  • Customers aged 25 and over: £1,000 in 24 hours, or £3,000 over a rolling 90-day period.
  • Customers under 25: £750 in 24 hours, or £2,000 over a rolling 90-day period.

The Commission has not set dates for any stage between Stage One and the final stage. Its July 2026 policy blog says: "We have deliberately not set out a timetable for later stages."

What happens after the threshold is passed

If a customer passes a threshold, the operator obtains data from a credit reference agency. The customer does not supply documents. The Commission states that the assessment does not affect the customer's credit score. This is called a frictionless assessment.

If the credit reference data cannot be used, the operator turns to other methods. These include open banking or documents. The Commission's pilot, which ran across 2024 and 2025, gave these results:

  • About 97% of customers above the thresholds could be assessed frictionlessly.
  • The 2023 Gambling White Paper had assumed a rate of 80%.
  • Fewer than 3% of accounts would ever need an assessment once the final stage is in place.
  • About 0.1% of accounts (1 in 1,000) would need a method other than credit reference data.

Where FRAs come up

The reason for the checks. The Commission states that customers in the high-spending group are 2 to 4 times more likely than the wider population to have a debt management plan. They are 2 to 5 times more likely to have had a default in the previous 12 months.

Parliamentary scrutiny. On 22 July 2026, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee wrote to the Commission with five questions. The questions covered the evidence base, the methodology, and how members of the implementation groups were chosen. In reply, the Commission's Acting Chief Executive, Sarah Gardner, committed to publishing the full dataset, evidence and methodology in a consultation response in autumn 2026. That response is also due to confirm the Stage One start date and the list of operators included.

Identity data. On 13 August 2026, iGaming Business reported the Commission's finding that poor identity checks reduced how often customers could be matched to credit reference records during the pilot. The errors included:

  • initials in place of full names
  • nicknames in place of legal forenames
  • business addresses in place of home addresses

The Commission reported that more than 25% of complaints to its Contact Centre relate to identity verification. As of that report, the Stage One start date had not been confirmed.

Not an affordability check

Financial risk assessment Affordability check (as the Commission describes it)
What it asks Whether a high-spending customer may be in financial difficulty now What a customer can afford to gamble
What starts it Net deposits passing a set threshold Not set out in the sources for this page
How it is done Credit reference agency data, with no documents in about 97% of pilot cases Document-based

Some critics describe the difference as a change of name only. The chief executive of the Betting and Gaming Council, Grainne Hurst, said: "These checks cannot be described as genuinely frictionless if they produce unreliable outcomes."

The FRA is also separate from the Commission's Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing risk assessment, published on 30 July 2026. Some press coverage has mixed the two together.

What this means for a player

The Commission states that people who bet occasionally, people who have recently won, and people who regularly spend hundreds of pounds are unlikely ever to need a check.

If an operator holds a name, address or date of birth that does not match your legal details, a frictionless check is less likely to work. The Commission urged operators to carry out full identity checks when a customer opens an account. Checking that an account shows your full legal name and home address reduces the chance of a request for documents later.

If an operator asks for documents, the frictionless route has not worked for that account. In the pilot, this happened to about 1 in 1,000 accounts. The Stage One start date and the final rules are expected in the Commission's autumn 2026 consultation response. Until that response is published, the timetable is not known.