Gambling Commission fees set to increase

“The DCMS has published its response to the consultation on proposals to increase the fees payable by gambling operators to the Gambling Commission. You may recall from our previous article (see here) that the consultation was separate to the Gambling Review and looked at an increase to the Gambling Commission fees.

The DCMS response outlines changes to take effect from October 2021 which include:

• An increase in annual fees for remote operating licences by 55%.
• All application fees to increase by 60%.
• Changes to simplify the fees system, including removing annual fee discounts for combined and multiple licences.

The DCMS response also confirms that the annual fees for non- remote operators will increase by 15% and that “…to reflect the particular difficulties caused to the land-based sector over the past year by the Covid-19 pandemic, the main fees payable by existing non-remote operators (annual licence fees) will remain unchanged for 2021/22, implementing this uplift in April 2022.”

The executive summary of the consultation response advises that the changes will be brought into force by secondary legislation.

The full consultation outcome can be viewed here.”