Open a new account at any British-licensed casino and, before your first deposit, you’ll be asked to set a limit. Most people click straight past it. That’s a shame, because it’s the one safety tool you set yourself and the operator then has to obey.
The rules behind it were tightened twice in the past year. Here’s what a casino licensed by the Gambling Commission now has to give you, and what is still left to the operator.
The prompt you can’t avoid
Since 31 October 2025, every licensed operator has had to prompt you to set a financial limit when you register or before your first deposit. Setting one has to be presented as the default, and if you don’t want one you have to actively say so before you can deposit.
Declined it? Customers with no limit must be prompted to review that at least once a year. Every active account also gets a nudge at least every six months to look over its account and transaction history.
The figure goes in a free text box, so you type your own number rather than picking from a menu that starts at £500. Operators may restrict it to whole pounds, to stop typos, but not to steer you.
What a “deposit limit” now means
Some operators had started offering limits that counted withdrawals against deposits, and calling them all deposit limits. The Commission found that confusing. Since 30 September 2026, pushed back from an original date of 30 June, only one thing may be called a deposit limit: a cap on the total you pay in over a set period, whatever you take out.
Every operator must offer that limit over 24 hours, 7 days and 1 month, across your whole account. It can offer loss limits, stake limits or “net” limits that subtract withdrawals as well, but the plain deposit limit must get at least equal prominence.
Set more than one and the tightest wins. The Commission’s own example: a £10 daily limit and a £100 weekly limit means at most £70 in a week. Once you hit a limit, further deposits must be blocked until the period resets.
Lowering is instant, raising takes a day
A request to reduce a limit must be applied immediately, unless a technical failure gets in the way, in which case you must be told when it will take effect.
A request to raise one cannot. There’s a cooling-off period of at least 24 hours, and at the end of it you must come back and confirm. If you don’t, it doesn’t happen. That rule exists for the version of you at midnight who has just lost the week’s budget, and it’s the best argument for setting a limit while you’re calm.
Time-outs, reality checks and the bigger off-switch
- Time-out. Online operators must let you take a break of 24 hours, one week, one month, or another period you reasonably ask for, up to six weeks.
- Reality check. You must be able to choose how often a pop-up shows how long you’ve been playing, and it stays until you acknowledge it.
- Self-exclusion. The operator must close your account, return any money in it and stop marketing to you. The Commission’s code says the shortest period offered should be six to 12 months and the longest at least five years. GAMSTOP covers online operators in one request.
Simply closing an account is a different thing. We couldn’t find a Commission rule on how a plain closure must work, so if you want the door properly shut, self-exclusion is the tool with rules behind it.
Guaranteed, and not
Guaranteed at every licensed site: the prompt, a true deposit limit over a day, a week and a month, a link to it from the homepage and deposit page, instant decreases, a 24-hour wait on increases, the time-out, the reality check and self-exclusion.
What varies: whether you also get loss or stake limits, whether limits can be set per game, how the reality check is wired up, and what the screens look like. So check which limit you’ve actually set. A loss limit is not a deposit limit, and the label now has to tell you which.
Small budgets need small minimums, too. A £10 daily limit isn’t much use where the minimum deposit is £20, which is where low minimum deposit casinos come in.
None of this is the same as a financial risk assessment. A limit is you setting the rules. An assessment is the operator checking whether your spending raises concerns, and you don’t choose when it happens. We’ve covered what financial risk assessments mean for you separately. Neither replaces the other.
Set the limit before you play, not during. Our safe casino gambling guide covers what else to check before you sign up anywhere.
Image: a debit card, by Neil Turner, CC BY-SA 2.0.
18+. Gambling should be entertainment, not income. Long term the house wins. Free and confidential help is at BeGambleAware.org.
