A rule and an operator's term are different things
A rule is a licence condition, a law or a standard written by a regulator or legislature. It applies to the operators that regulator licenses, in the place it covers. An operator's term sits in its own terms or help pages, and a page may say a term exists because of regulation. Check that against the regulator's text.
Every statement below names its place and regulator, because a rule in one place says nothing about another. Our guide to jurisdiction and availability explains why.
Customer funds: eight regulators, one question
The question is what each regulator's text says about keeping customer money apart, protecting it if the operator fails, and telling the customer. "Not stated" means the text we read does not say, not that no rule exists. Each regulator's page under licences shows the wording behind its row.
| Regulator and place | What the text we read says |
|---|---|
| Gambling Commission, Great Britain | Remote licensees that hold customer funds must keep them in a separate client bank account or accounts [1]. Licensees that hold customer funds must set out in their terms whether the funds are protected if the licensee becomes insolvent, and how far [2]. |
| Malta Gaming Authority, Malta | An authorised person must segregate player funds from the funds of any other person at all times. The regulations treat the funds as a distinct patrimony and say the operator's creditors have no claim on them [3]. |
| Gambling Supervision Commission, Isle of Man | An online licensee that registers recreational customers must safeguard the funds players deposit, in case it ceases to operate. Any mix of mechanisms, such as a bank guarantee, trust fund, client account or insurance, is allowed if the total protection equals the funds owed to players [4]. |
| Gambling Division, Gibraltar | A licence holder must tell customers at registration how far, if at all, their funds are protected if it becomes insolvent, and must promptly pay winnings and account balances. It must also follow regulations or codes on protecting customer funds, which we did not read [5]. |
| AGCO and iGaming Ontario, Ontario | Player funds shall be clearly and appropriately managed. The sections we read do not state segregation or insolvency protection [6]. |
| Kahnawà:ke Gaming Commission, Kahnawà:ke | The operator's liability for player balances must be separately identifiable, and balances covered by liquid funds, at all times. The text we read describes no trust, segregated account or insolvency protection [7]. |
| Curaçao Gaming Authority, Curaçao | Remote gambling licence holders must join a guarantee fund, for a premium, to secure the payout of player balances (article 5.7). Article 5.8 lets the regulator attach conditions on separating and reserving player funds [8]. We did not find the fund's rules or whether it operates. |
| Anjouan Gaming, Anjouan | Operators must segregate player funds from operational funds [9] [10]. Neither page says anything on insolvency protection or compensation. |
Read on 9 October 2026. The Curaçao text is in Dutch; the wording here is our translation.
Great Britain: separate is not the same as protected
The Gambling Commission's guidance, last updated 9 September 2025, says funds in separate accounts do not mean customers will get their money back in an insolvency. Operators must say which of the Commission's ratings applies [11]. For a remote operator:
- Not protected, segregation. The minimum for remote operators holding customer funds. The money is in separate accounts but would form part of the business's assets in an insolvency [11].
- Medium protection. Separate accounts plus arrangements, such as a Quistclose account or insurance, to distribute the assets to customers in an insolvency. The Commission says there is no absolute guarantee [11].
- High protection. A formal trust account, legally and in practice separate from the company [11].
An operator rated 'not protected' must remind the customer every six months of the amount held for them and get an acknowledgement [2]. A stake on an open bet is not counted as customer funds, so it sits outside the operator's arrangement [11].
The operator assesses its own arrangements, applies the matching rating and must not imply the Commission approved it [11]. We did not read any operator's declared rating. Check it there.
Payment methods: what a regulator rules out
A regulator's rules about how money gets in are a different thing from the lists of methods operators show.
| Regulator and place | What the text we read says |
|---|---|
| Gambling Commission, Great Britain | Licensees must not accept payment for gambling by credit card, including through a money service business [12]. The Commission announced the ban on 14 January 2020 and it took effect on 14 April 2020 [13]. Its guidance says the ban does not extend to non-remote lottery licences, so a credit card can still buy lottery tickets and scratchcards in a shop, and that an operator taking e-wallet payments should make sure the money was not loaded from a credit card [14]. |
| Registrar of AGCO, Ontario | Deposits and withdrawals must be verified and authorised first. A note says cryptocurrency is not legal tender and shall not be accepted. Operators shall not extend credit or lend money to players [6]. |
| Kahnawà:ke Gaming Commission, Kahnawà:ke | An authorised client provider will not accept cash, and may receive funds only by credit cards, debit cards or stored value accounts, electronic transfer, wire transfer, cheques or another method the Commission approves [7]. |
Read on 9 October 2026.
Withdrawals: what the texts require
The provisions we read set no number of days for paying out. They set standards instead.
- Great Britain. Identity must be verified before a customer may gamble. A withdrawal request must not lead to a demand for more information as a condition of withdrawal if the licensee could reasonably have asked earlier, though it may seek information it must obtain under another legal obligation [15].
- Ontario. Withdrawals are allowed only after verification and authorisation, which checks at a minimum that the account holder is making it and that it goes to an account the player legally holds. Players may withdraw 'as soon as is practicable', subject to that check [6].
- Kahnawà:ke. Once identity is verified, the provider must remit funds in the account to the player as soon as practicable after the request [7].
These are duties of the operator. They do not set how fast a bank or wallet moves the money. The Commission's chief executive wrote on 18 July 2024 that delayed withdrawals remained the most common subject of complaints to the Commission, at around 2,000 a year. The post adds that complaints remain low in proportion to completed withdrawals [16].
The post says customers should be able to withdraw their deposit balance at any time without restriction, except to meet obligations such as anti-money-laundering and fraud prevention, a principle it attributes to the Competition and Markets Authority [16].
One operator's pages beside the rules
This table sets what Ladbrokes' help pages say to UK customers against the rule we found in the Commission's texts, if any. Our Ladbrokes profile covers its licences. We chose it because its pages could be read: William Hill's and Paddy Power's help pages returned an HTTP 403 block page to our automated request on 9 October 2026, and we did not work around it.
| Topic | What the page says | Rule or operator term |
|---|---|---|
| Credit cards | From 14 April 2020 UK customers cannot fund an account by credit card, including through e-wallets. In most cases they can still withdraw to a credit card already registered to the account [17]. | Rule: condition 6.1.2 bars accepting payment by credit card [12]. The Commission texts we read cover accepting payment and say nothing about paying out to a card, so we cannot tie that point to a rule. |
| Deposit size and method count | A single deposit is capped at £2,000 for UK customers. The page says a UK account can have at most three payment methods in use across a rolling 30 days, covering debit card and e-wallet transactions but not prepaid cards, in-shop deposits or expired cards; that cap does not apply in Ireland [18] [19]. | Operator term. We found no condition in the texts we read that sets either figure. |
| Own-name methods | A payment method must be registered in the customer's name. A third-party method can result in the account being frozen [18]. | Operator term. The Commission's chief executive wrote that operators typically have such terms to prevent fraud, and described a case where the payment method was queried only when a withdrawal was requested, after the deposit had been accepted, and wrote that the Commission considers that unfair to customers [16]. |
| Where money goes back, and when | A 'closed loop' returns withdrawals to the methods used to deposit. In the page's example, a customer who deposited £100 by Visa and £50 by Apple Pay must send £100 to the card before taking more than £50 to Apple Pay. An internal team approves every withdrawal, and timeframes run from instant to five banking days, on top of internal processing time [20] [21]. | Operator term, which the page says guards against card theft and fraud. We found no rule in the texts we read that requires it, and the rules we read set standards, not days. |
| Verification | Ladbrokes says it must verify name, age and address, that withdrawals open once verification is complete, and that it may ask for further documents in routine checks [22]. | Rule: condition 17.1.1 requires identity verification, including name, address and date of birth, before a customer may gamble, and limits new demands at withdrawal [15]. The page does not say when documents are asked for, so we cannot say how Ladbrokes applies the limit. |
Read on 9 October 2026. The pages carry no date of their own.
If a payment or withdrawal goes wrong
In Great Britain the Commission says it does not resolve complaints about gambling transactions, and to complain to the business first. It lists how payments were managed, how much was paid and ID verification among the topics [23].
The Commission's code requires licensees to have arrangements for a customer to take a dispute to an accredited alternative dispute resolution entity if it is not resolved to the customer's satisfaction within eight weeks of the complaint, provided the customer has cooperated with the process in a timely way. The entity's services must cost the customer nothing [24].
Other regulators publish their own routes, on each regulator's page under licences. Keep the terms page you relied on, the dates, and the payment method used.
Sources
The numbers in the text point to these pages. Each was opened on the date shown.
- Gambling Commission, LCCP condition 4.1.1: Segregation of funds. Read 9 October 2026.
- Gambling Commission, LCCP condition 4.2.1: Disclosure to customers. Read 9 October 2026.
- legislation.mt, Gaming Player Protection Regulations, S.L. 583.08. Read 9 October 2026.
- Isle of Man Gambling Supervision Commission, Player protection information. Read 9 October 2026.
- Government of Gibraltar, Gambling Act 2025, consolidated text (Schedule 2, threshold conditions). Read 9 October 2026.
- AGCO, Registrar's Standards for Internet Gaming (print version, last updated 14 May 2026). Read 9 October 2026.
- Kahnawà:ke Gaming Commission, Regulations concerning Interactive Gaming (version of 25 March 2026). Read 9 October 2026.
- Government of Curaçao, Landsverordening op de kansspelen, PB 2024 no. 157 (official text, in Dutch). Read 9 October 2026.
- Anjouan Gaming, Regulatory standards. Read 9 October 2026.
- Anjouan Gaming, Code of conduct for licensed operators. Read 9 October 2026.
- Gambling Commission, Customer funds: segregation, disclosure to customers and reporting requirements. Read 9 October 2026.
- Gambling Commission, LCCP condition 6.1.2: Use of credit cards. Read 9 October 2026.
- Gambling Commission, News: Gambling on credit cards to be banned from April 2020 (14 January 2020). Read 9 October 2026.
- Gambling Commission, Preventing credit card use. Read 9 October 2026.
- Gambling Commission, LCCP condition 17.1.1: Customer identity verification. Read 9 October 2026.
- Gambling Commission, Blog: Key issues and our expectations concerning account withdrawals (18 July 2024). Read 9 October 2026.
- Ladbrokes, Help: Gambling with credit cards from April 2020 in the UK. Read 9 October 2026.
- Ladbrokes, Help: Deposit methods. Read 9 October 2026.
- Ladbrokes, Help: What is the payment method limit?. Read 9 October 2026.
- Ladbrokes, Help: What is the withdrawal procedure?. Read 9 October 2026.
- Ladbrokes, Help: How do I find out the timeframes of my withdrawal?. Read 9 October 2026.
- Ladbrokes, Help: Why do I need to verify my identity? (UK). Read 9 October 2026.
- Gambling Commission, Complain about a gambling business. Read 9 October 2026.
- Gambling Commission, LCCP code provision 6.1.1: Complaints and disputes. Read 9 October 2026.
About this guide
Published by Avenmark Media. A separate pass re-opened every source above and checked each claim against it, on . A second, independent check compared a sample of the claims with the same sources. How we research and correct our pages.
Found a mistake? Email [email protected]. We correct the page, change its updated date and say what changed.