Confirmed Details About New UKGC Bonus Rules

by James Gibson, 19 December 2025

New rules that limit gambling site promotions have been confirmed by the UKGC.

New bonus rules from the UKGC coming into effect in January. © andrewbecks, Pixabay

Key Facts:

• The UKGC has clarified new bonus rules that will take place from January 2026
• These rules prevent operators from combining different gambling types into a single offer
• There are also restrictions on free-to-play games that can award bonuses

On 19 January 2026, new bonus rules developed by the United Kingdom Gambling Commission (UKGC) will come into effect. These are designed to make bonuses less restrictive for players, giving them more freedom with promotions.

The rules were announced in March 2025 and were expected to be officially introduced in December of the same year. The UKGC later confirmed, through an update, that the new launch date is January 2026.

What the New Bonus Rules Entail

The rules prevent an operator from combining two different types of gambling in the same offer. The UKGC groups online gambling activities into four categories: casino, betting, bingo and lottery.

In a blog post released on 12 December, the UKGC clarified that the type of gambling the customer has to practise to earn the bonus must be the same as the bonus itself.

For example, if the customer has to place a sports bet, the bonus must be related to sports betting. Free bets would be allowed, but free spins on slots would not, as they are considered casino gambling rather than sports betting.

If a promotion is offer-specific, the bonus can’t be unrestricted. Promotions that require spending money on bingo, for example, can’t let the player choose the type of gambling they spend the bonus on; the bonus can only be for bingo.

The UKGC also confirmed that if there are no restrictions on what the customer must spend money on to earn a bonus, the bonus itself should also have no restrictions.

To give an example, if a promotion requires a customer to spend £10 on any type of gambling of their choosing, they should also get to decide how to spend the bonus.

They could, for example, spend their £10 on casino games. They might then decide to spend their bonus on sports bets. Or they could split it between bingo and lottery tickets. The point is that it’s the customer’s choice.

A gambling site isn’t allowed to let customers spend money on any gambling, only then to restrict the bonus to a particular gambling type. The aim is to give people freedom of choice.

Examples to Clarify the New Rules

The UKGC provided examples to confirm how the new rules will work. Some of them are given below, along with explanations of why they do or don’t follow the rules.

• Bet £5 and get £10 free bet. This is allowed because the customer activity and bonus are both related to sports betting.
• Spend £5 on casino products and get 20 free spins. This is also permitted because both casino products and slots (which you spend free spins on) belong to the same category, casino.
• Bet £5 and get a £5 free bet and 20 free spins. Even though the customer activity and £5 free bet belong to the same gambling category (betting), the promotion isn’t allowed. This is because it includes free spins, which belong to a different category (casino).
• Bet £5 to get £10 credit or bonus to be used on all products available. The reason this promotion isn’t permitted is that it restricts the customer activity but doesn’t restrict the bonus. For it to be allowed, the bonus would have to be for sports betting only.
• Deposit £5 and get £5 credit or bonus of any licensed product. This is allowed because both the customer activity and the bonus are unrestricted.

To summarise, the customer activity, i.e. what the customer has to do to qualify for a bonus, has to match the gambling category the bonus belongs to. If the activity isn’t restricted, the bonus shouldn’t be restricted either.

Free-to-Play Promotional Games

The new rules from the UKGC also address promotional games in free-to-play apps. When the rewards are random, they have to belong to the same gambling category.

If a game’s rewards were free spins, bingo tickets or a sports bonus, for example, this wouldn’t be allowed. This is because the rewards are from different categories and the customer doesn’t get to choose which one they receive.

However, if the game’s rewards all belonged to the same category, this would be permitted. For example, a free game that only offers free spins bundles of different sizes wouldn’t break the rules.