Affordability checks are the most talked-about and least understood thing in UK gambling. Most of what circulates about them is wrong in the same three ways: the dates are out by a year, the trigger is described as losses when it is actually deposits, and the check is said to read your credit file when it reads almost none of it. This page sticks to what the Gambling Commission itself publishes. The short version is that the check is narrower, older and duller than its reputation, and the great majority of players will never notice one running.
What the Check Actually Is
The formal name is a light-touch financial vulnerability check. It is not an assessment of what you can afford, and the Commission has been firm that it does not cap or limit anyone’s spending. What it does is look for signals that a customer is already in financial difficulty, the sort of thing a bankruptcy or a county court judgment records publicly, and flag that to the operator so it can act before harm compounds.
That distinction matters because the popular version of this story has casinos demanding payslips from anyone who deposits fifty pounds. The reality is a background database lookup that most players never see, sitting a long way below the document requests people actually complain about.
The Thresholds, and When They Changed
There have been two, and both are older than most coverage suggests.
| Period | Threshold |
|---|---|
| 30 August 2024 to 27 February 2025 | £500 net deposits in a rolling 30 days |
| 28 February 2025 onwards | £150 net deposits in a rolling 30 days |
The higher opening figure was deliberate, giving operators room to build the check into their systems before it applied at the level intended. If you have read that these checks arrived in 2026, that is simply wrong, and it is worth knowing because a good deal of advice written on that assumption gets the rest wrong too.
What Counts Towards the Trigger
The trigger is net deposits: everything you put in, minus everything you have taken out, across a rolling 30-day window. It is not net loss. This trips people up constantly, so it is worth being concrete about it.
- Deposit £200 and withdraw £100, and your net deposits are £100. Below the threshold, whatever happened to the money in between.
- Deposit £200 and lose the lot without withdrawing, and your net deposits are £200. Above it.
- Deposit £200, win, and withdraw £600, and your net deposits are negative. Nowhere near it.
Two further points. The window rolls, so it is the last 30 days at any moment rather than a calendar month. And once a check has run, it does not need to run again for twelve months, even if you cross the threshold repeatedly in that time. Note the contrast with deposit limits, which are counted gross and ignore withdrawals entirely. Two systems, two ways of counting, and confusing them is the root of most of the anxiety here.
What Data Is Actually Looked At
This is the part that gets most distorted. The check looks at publicly available insolvency records only:
- a bankruptcy order or its equivalent
- a county court judgment (CCJ)
- an individual voluntary arrangement (IVA)
- a high court judgment
- an administration order or decree
- a debt relief order (DRO)
That is the list. Your salary is not in it. Your account balance is not in it. Your overdraft use is not in it, which is why the common claim that these checks expose overdraft-funded gambling is untrue, and we corrected our own overdraft guide when we found it repeating that. The Commission also considered and explicitly rejected using postcode and job-title data after consultation, on the grounds that inferring means from where someone lives or what they do for a living is exactly the kind of profiling players objected to.
What You Will Actually Experience
For most people, nothing at all. The check is designed to be frictionless: it runs in the background against those public records and returns nothing of concern, and play continues without interruption. You are not asked to upload anything, you are not told it happened, and no decision is made about you.
Where a flag does come back, what follows is up to the operator and its own risk rules. That might be a message, a prompt to review your limits, a cap, or in some cases a request for further information. It is worth separating this cleanly from routine identity and verification requests, which nearly every player meets at some point and which have nothing to do with affordability at all.
Light-Touch Versus Enhanced
Above the light-touch check sit enhanced financial risk assessments, aimed at much higher spend and involving real financial data rather than public records. These have been developed through Commission pilots testing how operators and credit reference agencies would share data in practice.
You will see specific enhanced thresholds quoted confidently around the web. We are not repeating them, because we could not find them in the Commission’s own published position, and a number that turns out to be invented is worse than no number. If a figure matters to your decision, the register and guidance at gamblingcommission.gov.uk is the only source worth trusting on it.
Does It Affect Your Credit Score?
No. The Commission is explicit that these checks do not affect a customer’s credit score, and that was a design requirement rather than a happy accident.
One nuance is worth knowing, because it causes genuine alarm. Where an operator runs the check through a third-party provider, the check itself may show up on your credit report as a record that a search took place. It does not change your score and it is not a lending application, but seeing an unfamiliar company listed on your report is unsettling if you do not know why it is there. The Commission has encouraged providers to describe these searches accurately for exactly that reason.
If You Are Asked for Documents
A document request is not the light-touch check. It is either enhanced work, an operator’s own risk policy, or ordinary source-of-funds and verification work, and the practical advice is the same in all three cases.
- Ask which it is, in writing. Operators should tell you what they need and why, and the answer changes what you send.
- Send only what was asked for. Redact what is not relevant. A statement showing the deposits in question does not need to show the rest of your life.
- Use the account’s own upload route rather than email, so there is a record and your documents are not sitting in an inbox.
- Keep a copy of everything, dated. If it turns into a complaint, the paper trail decides it.
- Escalate if it stalls. Our guide to complaining about a UK casino covers the formal route and the free ADR stage beyond it.
If a withdrawal is sitting unpaid while this happens, that is common and has its own explanation. See why casino withdrawals go pending.
Four Myths Worth Dropping
| The claim | What is actually true |
|---|---|
| “They started in 2026” | August 2024 at £500, February 2025 at £150 |
| “It triggers on losses” | It triggers on net deposits, so withdrawals count in your favour |
| “They read your credit file” | Public insolvency records only. No income, no balances, no overdraft |
| “It damages your credit score” | It does not. A third-party search may appear on your report without affecting the score |
Verdict
The light-touch check is a far smaller thing than the conversation around it. It looks at a short list of public insolvency markers, it triggers on money in rather than money lost, it rests for a year once it has run, and it changes nothing about your credit score. If you are not subject to a CCJ, an IVA, a DRO or a bankruptcy order, it will almost certainly pass over you without your ever knowing.
What deserves your attention instead is the tool you control. A deposit limit is instant to lower, binding on the operator, and counted gross, which makes it a far blunter and more reliable instrument than any background check. If the reason you are reading this is that the checks feel like they are closing in, that is worth taking seriously on its own terms: BeGambleAware and the National Gambling Helpline on 0808 8020 133 are free and confidential, and our responsible gambling page sets out the blocking and self-exclusion tools that work at the payment level.
Affordability Check FAQs
What triggers a casino affordability check?
Net deposits, meaning deposits minus withdrawals, passing £150 in a rolling 30-day window. It is not based on how much you have lost, and withdrawals genuinely reduce the figure.
When did UK affordability checks start?
The light-touch check began on 30 August 2024 at a £500 threshold, and the threshold dropped to £150 on 28 February 2025. Anything telling you these arrived in 2026 is a year out.
Do affordability checks affect your credit score?
No. The Gambling Commission is explicit that they do not. Where the check runs through a third-party provider, a record of the search may appear on your credit report, but it does not change your score and it is not a lending application.
What information does the check actually look at?
Publicly available insolvency records only: bankruptcy orders, county court judgments, IVAs, high court judgments, administration orders and debt relief orders. Not your income, not your balances, not your overdraft.
Can a casino see my overdraft?
Not through this check. Overdraft use is not in the data it looks at. Postcode and job-title data were considered and explicitly rejected as well.
How often does the check run?
Once it has run, it does not need to run again for twelve months, even if you cross the threshold repeatedly during that period.
Will I be asked to send payslips or bank statements?
Not for the light-touch check, which is a background database lookup with nothing to submit. Document requests come from enhanced assessments, an operator’s own risk rules, or ordinary verification work, and you are entitled to ask in writing which one applies.
Do affordability checks cap how much I can spend?
The check itself does not. The Commission has been clear that these assessments are not designed to limit or cap customer spend. An operator may act on a flag under its own rules, but the check is not a spending cap.
Sources & verification: checked 25 July 2026 against the Gambling Commission’s published position on light-touch financial vulnerability checks, which sets out the £500 threshold from 30 August 2024, the £150 threshold from 28 February 2025, the net-deposit trigger over a rolling 30 days, the list of public insolvency records used, the rejection of postcode and job-title data, the twelve-month repeat interval, and the position that the checks do not affect credit score. See gamblingcommission.gov.uk. Enhanced-assessment thresholds are not stated here because they are not in that source. 18+ · begambleaware.org
