Britain Fines Gambling Firms Ten Times More Than New Jersey for Letting Vulnerable Players Bet

LONDON, Nov. 11, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Operators that fail vulnerable customers pay far more in Britain than anywhere in North America, according to the Regulator Strictness Index 2026, published by CasinoReviews.net for Safer Gambling Week (16 to 22 November).

The index covers 89 penalties published by seven regulators in the UK, Canada and the US between November 2025 and October 2026. Each penalty was checked against the regulator's own decision document and measured against the revenue its market generates, so larger markets are not ranked stricter simply for their size.

Key findings

• Britain is the most expensive place to fail a vulnerable customer. The UK Gambling Commission imposed £846 ($846 per $1 million) in responsible gambling penalties for every £1 million of gambling yield, more than ten times New Jersey's $81, the highest rate in North America. Massachusetts imposed $3.66.
• Self-exclusion is the failure regulators punish most often. Ten of New Jersey's eleven responsible gambling penalties involved breaches of self-exclusion rules. Caesars Sportsbook paid $296,715 including disgorged profits and BetMGM paid $157,789, with smaller penalties for bet365, FanDuel, Hard Rock Digital and DraftKings.
• North America's biggest fines had nothing to do with player protection. Nevada fined Caesars Palace $7.8 million and The Venetian $7.2 million over illegal bookmaker Mathew Bowyer, and Ohio's only published penalty was a $450,000 settlement with Bally's Interactive over tax reporting. Neither state published a responsible gambling penalty in twelve months.
• The largest UK case was £5.01 million paid by the Grosvenor casino group for social responsibility and anti-money laundering failures, including letting customers returning from self-exclusion lose heavily.
• One regulator keeps its fines out of public view. Michigan was excluded because its regulator does not publish the amounts of its enforcement decisions.

Nikoleta Kuncheva, Project Manager and Lead Researcher at CasinoReviews.net, said: "Self-exclusion is the last safeguard a player sets for themselves. When the penalty for breaking it ranges from millions of pounds to a few thousand dollars, and one state will not even say what it charges, players have no way of knowing how seriously that promise is enforced."

Responsible gambling penalties per 1 million of revenue, Nov 2025 to Oct 2026

The full dataset and methodology, with links to every regulator decision, are available on request.

About:
Founded in 2020, CasinoReviews.net reviews and compares online casinos and publishes daily news coverage of the gambling industry. Its editorial team also produces data-led studies on gambling regulation and player protection, along with interviews with gambling specialists.

Media contact:

Nikoleta Kuncheva
+44 7457845605
[email protected]

SOURCE CasinoReviews.net