Unibet: licences, history and record

Unibet is an online betting brand that began in 1997 and now belongs to FDJ UNITED, which took over its parent Kindred Group in October 2024. The Gambling Commission lists Platinum Gaming Limited as its British licensee. The Commission fined that company £2.9 million in 2023 and £10 million in 2025, and Unibet's own website would not open from our location.

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Pros and cons

At a glance

Founded

1997, by Anders Ström, according to WikipediaSource: Wikipedia

Owner

FDJ UNITED, which completed its acquisition of Kindred Group in October 2024Sources: Wikipedia; iGaming Business

Online licensee in Great Britain

Platinum Gaming Limited, account 45322, five remote licences since 12 July 2016Source: Gambling Commission

Active UK domains

unibet.co.uk, touch.unibt.co.uk and 32red.com; two bingo.com addresses are white-labelSource: Gambling Commission

Other licences read

Gibraltar: Platinum Gaming Limited, bookmaker and gaming operator (B2C), listed under Kindred GroupSource: Gibraltar Gambling Division

Not on the register

Ontario directory has no Unibet entrySource: iGaming Ontario

Regulator actions found

Commission: £2.9m (2023) and £10m (decision 22 September 2025)Sources: Gambling Commission; Gambling Commission

Last read

3 October 2026Source: Gambling Commission

Company history

According to Wikipedia, Anders Ström founded Unibet in 1997, first working from his home in Earl's Court, London. It took bets by telephone from 1998 and opened its first betting website in 1999. The company later became Unibet Group plc, won its first foreign licence in Malta and listed on the Swedish stock exchange in 2004, when it said it had more than 300,000 registered customers.Source: Wikipedia

Wikipedia's account of the group lists growth by purchase: the Danish bookmaker Bet24 in 2012, the online business of Stan James in July 2015 and 32Red in 2017, for about £176 million. Shareholders approved renaming Unibet Group as Kindred Group in December 2016, citing a multi-brand strategy. Unibet was among the licences awarded when Denmark opened its market in 2011.Source: Wikipedia

Kindred entered United States sports betting in 2018 through a Hard Rock casino partnership and added Pennsylvania in 2019. Wikipedia says a strategic review began in April 2023 and that in November 2023 Kindred announced it would leave all North American markets by the second quarter of 2024. Ontario's regulator fined Unibet CAD 48,000 in August 2022 over advertising and inducements.Sources: Wikipedia; Wikipedia

France's FDJ offered €2.45 billion for Kindred in 2024. By 2 October, holders of 90.66% of the capital had tendered their shares, and Wikipedia says the acquisition completed that month. FDJ UNITED now describes a group of 33 million customers, and its London operations are run by Kindred London Limited, the head-office name on Platinum Gaming's Commission entry.Sources: iGaming Business; Wikipedia; FDJ UNITED; Gambling Commission

Wikipedia records regulatory actions in several countries. Sweden's regulator fined a Kindred company SEK 100 million in 2020 over bonus rules, later cut to SEK 30 million on appeal. In December 2024 the Dutch regulator fined the operator of Unibet's Dutch site €400,000 for letting players on its national self-exclusion register gamble.Source: Wikipedia

1. 1997Founded

   Anders Ström founds Unibet, working from his home in London (Wikipedia).

   Source: Wikipedia
2. December 2016Renamed Kindred Group

   Shareholders approve renaming Unibet Group plc as Kindred Group plc (Wikipedia).

   Source: Wikipedia
3. 23 March 2023Commission penalty: £7.1m

   The Gambling Commission announces £7.1 million for 32Red and Platinum Gaming, of which £2,937,599 is Platinum Gaming's.

   Source: Gambling Commission
4. November 2023North America exit announced

   Kindred says it will leave all North American markets by the second quarter of 2024 (Wikipedia).

   Source: Wikipedia
5. October 2024FDJ completes its takeover

   FDJ completes its acquisition of Kindred after more than 90% of capital is tendered.

   Sources: Wikipedia; iGaming Business
6. 22 September 2025Commission penalty: £10m

   The Commission decides on a £10 million penalty against Platinum Gaming Limited, announced on 22 October 2025.

   Sources: Gambling Commission; Gambling Commission

Licences it holds

Where you can and cannot use it

Great Britain: yes, through Platinum Gaming Limited's Commission licence. The Commission's 2025 notice describes the company as running unibet.co.uk and uk.bingo.com, and the register's domain list also shows 32red.com as active under the same account.Sources: Gambling Commission; Gambling Commission

Ontario: the iGaming Ontario directory, accurate to 1 September 2026, has no Unibet entry. That fits Wikipedia's report that Kindred announced in 2023 that it would exit North America.Sources: iGaming Ontario; Wikipedia

Elsewhere: Wikipedia lists past operations in Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, France, Italy and Romania, and records Kindred companies serving Norway and the Netherlands. The infobox is undated, so we cannot say which countries Unibet serves today. FDJ UNITED names Unibet among its brands.Sources: Wikipedia; Wikipedia; FDJ UNITED

Payments and withdrawals

Unibet's website and help pages did not open from our location, so we cannot list the payment methods it accepts, their limits or its withdrawal times. This section therefore describes only the rules that bind a Commission licensee, which any Unibet customer in Great Britain can expect to see applied.Source: Gambling Commission

Credit cards cannot be used for gambling in Great Britain. The Commission announced the ban on 14 April 2020, and licence condition 6.1.2 requires operators not to accept credit-card payments. Operators accepting e-wallets must also make sure the money was not loaded from a credit card.Source: Gambling Commission

Customer identity must be verified before a customer gambles, and a withdrawal request must not trigger a request for further information that the operator could reasonably have asked for earlier. Operators should tell customers before a deposit which documents they may need.Source: Gambling Commission

Operators holding customer funds must keep them in separate client bank accounts. They must also say in their terms whether funds are protected if the company becomes insolvent, and how much protection applies, and customers must acknowledge that information before using the funds. We did not read which rating Platinum Gaming has chosen.Sources: Gambling Commission; Gambling Commission

The Commission's 2025 findings bear directly on payments. Platinum Gaming's anti-money-laundering policy lacked clarity on due diligence, and its risk assessment ignored customers whose accounts it had closed over laundering concerns before 2023.Source: Gambling Commission

Limits and safer-gambling tools

Time-outs are a licence requirement. A remote licensee must offer 24 hours, one week, one month, or another period the customer reasonably asks for, up to six weeks. Self-exclusion rules require the operator to close the account and return the funds, and to remove the customer from marketing lists within two days.Sources: Gambling Commission; Gambling Commission

Remote licensees must also take part in the national multi-operator self-exclusion scheme, so one registration covers every licensed operator. The Commission found in 2023 that self-excluded or blocked customers could register with Platinum Gaming after being blocked on the 32Red platform.Sources: Gambling Commission; Gambling Commission

The deposit-limit rules are changing. New customers from 30 September 2026 must be offered 'gross' deposit limits, and a prompt to review account information and limits at least every six months has applied since 31 October 2025. We did not read how Unibet has applied either change.Source: Gambling Commission

FDJ UNITED says a programme called Safe Play launched in January 2026 and that its brands, Unibet among them, will adopt it. It lists tools including gaming limits, self-assessment tests and self-exclusion. The page describes group policy, not the settings on a Unibet account.Source: FDJ UNITED

The Commission added a condition to Platinum Gaming's licence in 2025 and required an independent review of whether its anti-money-laundering and safer-gambling controls work, with regular updates to the Commission. We did not read the condition's wording.Sources: Gambling Commission; Gambling Commission

Drawbacks

The 2025 penalty describes systems that missed clear signs of harm. One customer lost £5,000 within 24 hours of registering and over £16,000 in under three months. Another lost over £31,000 in nine months, hitting the monthly loss limit six times. A third exceeded a £2,500 loss limit within 16 minutes of registering.Source: Gambling Commission

A fourth customer staked £73,000 and lost £4,100 over 23 days without any interaction from the operator. The Commission called these serious shortcomings and said further regulatory activity remains possible. The penalty covered January 2023 to May 2024, so it does not show how the controls perform now.Sources: Gambling Commission; Gambling Commission

The Commission also said this was the second time Platinum Gaming faced enforcement. The 2023 package concerned failures to spot problem customers and to link accounts held by one person, and the Commission also said Platinum Gaming's anti-money-laundering policies, procedures and controls were not appropriate and had not been kept under review, and it came about two and a half years before the 2025 decision.Sources: Gambling Commission; Gambling Commission

The wider group has a record abroad. Wikipedia lists a Norwegian coercive fine of NOK 1.198 million a day in 2022 against a Kindred subsidiary that kept serving Norwegians, Danish orders in 2021 and 2022 for weak customer due diligence, and the Dutch and Swedish fines above. These concern other licences, not the British account.Source: Wikipedia

How it compares

Unibet and Betway are both online-only brands. Platinum Gaming holds one Commission account with five remote licences and a London head office, while Betway Limited holds three remote licences from a Malta address and lists four trading names, betway, hippodrome online, jackpot city and spin casino.Sources: Gambling Commission; Gambling Commission

Their Ontario positions differ. The iGaming Ontario directory lists Betway under Cadway Limited and has no Unibet entry. Kindred announced its North American exit in 2023, which Wikipedia reports.Sources: iGaming Ontario; Wikipedia

Each has a large Commission package in its history. Betway agreed to pay £11.6 million for failings linked to seven high-spending customers, including one who deposited over £8 million. Platinum Gaming's two penalties total £12.9 million, with the second adding a licence condition.Sources: Gambling Commission; Gambling Commission; Gambling Commission

Read the Betway review for the other side of the comparison.

If something goes wrong

We could not read Unibet's complaints procedure. Licence code 6.1.1 requires a UK licensee to let a customer refer an unresolved dispute to a free alternative dispute resolution entity once eight weeks have passed since the complaint. A licensee may not use terms that restrict a customer's right to take the matter to court.Source: Gambling Commission

The Commission's guide tells customers to complain to the operator first, and its register page for the licensee repeats that. The Commission's own feedback form says it will not reply to complaints sent through it.Sources: Gambling Commission; Gambling Commission

Regulatory record

1. 23 March 2023UK Gambling Commission: £2,937,599

   Platinum Gaming Limited, which runs unibet.co.uk, was fined with 32Red as part of a £7.1 million announcement. It also received an official warning. The Commission said it had no effective procedures to identify separate accounts held by one person, and that it failed to identify and interact with customers who may have been experiencing harm.

   Source: Gambling Commission
2. 18 December 2024Dutch Gambling Authority: €400,000

   The Kansspelautoriteit fined Optdeck Service Limited, operator of Unibet's Dutch site, for letting players on the national self-exclusion register sign up and gamble in late 2022 and early 2023 (Wikipedia, which cites the regulator).

   Source: Wikipedia
3. 22 September 2025UK Gambling Commission: £10,000,000

   The Commission found breaches of licence conditions 12.1.1 and 12.1.2 on anti-money laundering and of paragraphs of code 3.4.3 on customer interaction between January 2023 and May 2024. It imposed the penalty, a warning and an added condition, and announced it on 22 October 2025.

   Sources: Gambling Commission; Gambling Commission

What we could not check

• Unibet's own website, odds, payment methods, limits, terms and complaints procedure (the site did not open from our location).
• The Gibraltar licence numbers, which Wikipedia gives and the register page did not show to us.
• Which countries Unibet serves today; the sources we could read are partly out of date.
• The text of the condition the Commission attached to the licence in 2025, and whether the independent review has finished.
• Whether FDJ UNITED has changed Unibet's licensing or ownership structure since its takeover.
• Any regulator outcome outside Great Britain that this page does not list.