About UKGC
First, a bit of history. The United Kingdom Gambling Commission (UKGC for short) was established in 2005, in accordance with the Gambling Act that was released the same year. After 2 years of preparation, UKGC started to offer its services on September 1, 2007. At the moment, it is located at Victoria Square House, Birmingham, B2 4BP address and employs more than 250 people. Secretary of State for Culture is the responsible manager of this agency, but most of its operations are supervised by the Chief Executive, which is Bill Moyes as of 2019.
UKGC Responsibilities
UKGC is responsible for many things in Great Britain, including:
- Regulation of arcade saloons, land-based casinos, land-based casino games, bingo games, lotteries
- Regulation of online gambling and sports betting
- Organizing the National Lottery in the United Kingdom.
Simply put, this official institution provides physical and electronic licenses to the operators who want to offer one of the services above. Like other licensing agencies, its primary goal is to control the gambling and betting market. Due to this goal, UKGC also provides a lot of consumer protection services, such as responsible gambling.
The reason why it is the most reputable licensing agency in the world is that getting a UKGC license is quite hard. The agency runs a very thorough background check on applicants, and even an unpaid parking ticket will be a problem. The application and annual fees of UKGC are also quite high, so only the largest companies in the online gambling industry can afford this license. As of 2019, making an application costs at least 15.000 GBP and the annual fee is nearly 50.000 GBP, and these are the “basic” licenses. Therefore, casinos with a UKGC license are always reputable, player friendly, and professional.
Casinos Under a UK License
The casinos below are free to accept residents of the United Kingdom as members because they own the United Kingdom Gambling Commission license:
As always, you can find the reviews and exclusive bonus codes of these casinos at Slotozilla main website. Note that there are additional online casinos that hold this license too, the list above is just an example.
UKGC Features That Are Useful to Players
As mentioned above, this license offers many consumer protection services too. Some of these are:
- Fair Gambling Terms. All UKGC casinos must offer fair terms to their customers. This means all bonuses, promotions, and wagering requirements must be easy to understand and transparent. Online casinos with this license cannot “trick” their members with amazingly high match rates and “hide” the wagering requirement, for example.
- Responsible Gambling. UKGC casinos must offer self-exclusion services to their clients. So, for example, a member must be able to put restrictions on its playing time, game types, and gambling budget.
- License Search. Via this address, you can search and confirm if an online casino really is the owner of a UKGC license.
Unfortunately, UKGC does not provide any resolution services, so you cannot apply directly to this agency to solve your problems with casinos. However, the commission can assign an Alternative Dispute Resolution service provider to your case. This means they cannot solve your problems directly, but they can help you to resolve them.
