Gibraltar

Gibraltar has licensed remote gambling since the late 1990s; the Gambling Act 2005 governed the sector until the Gambling Act 2025 (in force 1 October 2025, with a six-month transitional period) modernised it. The new Act keeps a split structure — the Minister acts as Licensing Authority while an empowered Gambling Commissioner, supported by the Gambling Division, handles supervision and enforcement, with a new Gambling Appeals Tribunal. Licensing now turns on real management, control and substantive presence in Gibraltar rather than server location, and creates B2C, B2B and Gambling Operator Support Services (GOSS) categories. Gibraltar remains a selective, low-duty jurisdiction favoured by large established operators, many of whom serve the British market and pay UK duties on GB customers.

A split mandate

Gibraltar deliberately separates who grants licences from who polices them. The Minister, acting as Licensing Authority, decides applications and sets policy, while the Gambling Commissioner and the Gambling Division handle day-to-day supervision, inspection and enforcement. The 2025 Act also created a Gambling Appeals Tribunal, giving licensees an independent route to challenge decisions rather than relying solely on the courts. For a diligence reader this matters because admission and ongoing conduct are judged by different bodies: obtaining a licence is a ministerial act, whereas keeping one depends on satisfying a technical regulator that holds its own supervisory and enforcement powers.

The 2025 overhaul

The Gambling Act 2025 replaced a framework dating from 2005 and reframed what a licence rests on. The central shift is the substance test: eligibility now turns on genuine management, control and physical presence in Gibraltar, not merely where servers sit, closing the older brass-plate model. The Act also introduced a distinct Gambling Operator Support Services category, bringing activities such as marketing and CRM, managed trading, software hosting and the holding of customer funds inside the licensing perimeter. Rather than an immediate cut-over, existing operators were given a six-month transition from the 1 October 2025 commencement to align with the new obligations.

A closed, vetted market

There is no open registration. Admission runs through due-diligence-based vetting, and the tiered annual fees, reaching £100,000 for gross gaming yield between £20 million and £300 million and £200,000 above £300 million in a single vertical, presume meaningful revenue. Combined with the substance requirement, this shapes a jurisdiction oriented towards large, established operators able to fund a real Gibraltar footprint and withstand detailed scrutiny. It is structurally ill-suited to start-ups or lightly capitalised entrants. The practical effect is a small, curated licensee base rather than a high-volume registry, which is relevant when weighing a counterparty's regulatory standing.

Low duty, external cost

Gibraltar's 0.15% duty on gross gaming profits, with the first £100,000 exempt, sits among the lowest headline rates anywhere, and historically drew operators to base substance on the Rock. The economics are more nuanced than that local rate suggests. Gambling taxation generally falls where the customer is, not where the operator sits, so a Gibraltar-licensed business serving Great Britain pays UK Remote Gaming Duty, rising to 40% from 1 April 2026, on that revenue. The low Gibraltar duty therefore benefits corporate structuring and non-UK activity far more than it offsets the cost of UK-facing play.

Supervision and enforcement

Ongoing oversight sits with the Gambling Commissioner, whose remit spans licence conditions, anti-money-laundering obligations and player-protection standards. Under the 2025 Act the Commissioner can inspect licensees, impose financial penalties and suspend or revoke licences, a broader enforcement toolkit than the previous regime provided. Operators remain subject to Gibraltar's anti-money-laundering regime, applied in practice through the Gambling Division. Enforcement decisions carrying real consequence can in turn be tested before the Appeals Tribunal, giving the process a check as well as teeth. For diligence, the relevant point is that supervision is active and rules-based, not a one-off registration formality.

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