Britain's gambling rules: tighten now, loosen later

The Gambling Commission says it regulates “most types of gambling in Great Britain.” Its technical standards for online gambling include RTS 12, which covers the financial limits customers set on their own accounts.

Requirement 12D treats the two directions differently. In the wording that applies from 31 October 2025, “customer-led reductions to limits must be implemented immediately,” unless a systems or technical failure prevents it. An increase may happen only at the customer's request, “only after a cooling-off period of at least 24 hours has elapsed” and “only once the customer has taken positive action at the end of the cooling off period to confirm their request.”

Self-exclusion, where a customer shuts themselves out of gambling for a set time, follows the same pattern in the Commission's code for online operators. It is an “ordinary code”, so operators may adopt other approaches, but this is the one it sets out. A customer who decides to self-exclude is given the chance to do so “immediately without any cooling-off period.” The shortest period offered is between 6 and 12 months, with options up to at least five years.

When the chosen period ends, the self-exclusion “remains in place, for a minimum of 7 years,” unless the customer takes positive action to gamble again. If they do, “the customer is given one day to cool off before being allowed to access gambling facilities,” and the request has to be made by phone or in person.

Consumer law uses a similar pause. In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission's Cooling-Off Rule “gives you three days to cancel certain sales made at your home, workplace, or dormitory,” or at a seller's temporary location such as a hotel room or a fairground.