Casino Account Verification UK: What They Can Ask For

What verification has to happen before you play

Before you place any stakes, you are faced with two requirements that come worded very specifically and are thus worth the read.

The first one pertains to your age. Social responsibility code 3.2.11 states that an operator has an obligation to verify the age of a client prior to that client being able to deposit funds, access free-to-play gambling games, or gamble with real money, a free bet, or a bonus.

That particular clause catches many people off guard. The age confirmation needed to play a free slot, which contains no actual money, is the same as a paid spin. It explains why, in the United Kingdom, registered players are required to confirm age and are able to play for free, while unlicensed and unregulated websites will allow a player to spin the reels for free.

The second is about identity. Licence condition 17.1.1 states that licensees must collect and confirm the customer’s identity before they are allowed to gamble. The information at minimum must contain the customer’s name, address and date of birth.

Paragraph 3 of the condition states that it is essentially the obligation of the casino that is rarely utilised. Before proceeding with the deposit, the casino has to inform the customer the kinds of identity documents or any other information that may be required, the circumstances that may warrant the requirement of such documentation, and the form and manner in which they must be submitted. Should a customer wish to be informed of the requirements, this information is supposed to be provided before the customer makes a deposit.

Paragraph 4 of the condition states that the emails are sent to fulfil the licensees’ obligation to take reasonable steps to ensure the identity information is accurate. This is the reason that emails are sent when customers (either) move homes or let a card expire.

In reality, most of these are unnoticeable. A check is run against public and credit records once a customer registers, and the customers are not notified of this. All British Casino has explained the process clearly: Verification is done electronically at the registration, and an email is sent to the customer only if the automatic check was not successful.

The rule that stops a casino moving the goalposts

This is the sentence to know, and it sits in the same condition:

It is based on a specific pattern. An account opens, and for many months customers can transfer money freely. The conditions appear only at the moment money is due to leave the account. The condition treats this as the licensee’s failure to make the request promptly. The customer should not bear the cost of this.

The condition states one exception, and does a lot of work, this requirement does not prevent a licensee from seeking information on the customer which they must obtain at that time for other legal obligations.

So there is a single question that decides whether a document request at withdrawal is legitimate. Could the operator reasonably have asked for this earlier? If the answer is yes and no other law forced its hand at that moment, the request should not be a condition of your payout.

Why the request still arrives: the £2,000 rule

The other legal obligation is almost always the same one. Casinos are named in the Money Laundering Regulations 2017 as businesses the rules apply to, and regulation 27 sets out when customer due diligence has to be carried out.

According to paragraph 6, a casino must conduct customer due diligence for transactions of £2,000 or more, "whether the transaction is executed in a single operation or in several operations which appear to be linked." Paragraph 6 then defines transactions to include both sides - the deposit of funds to participate in remote gambling, and the collection of remote gambling winnings, including the withdrawal of funds deposited to participate in remote gambling or the collection of remote gambling winnings.

• It is cumulative. Linked operations count together, so £100 a week for five months reaches the threshold as surely as one £2,000 deposit does.
• It counts money going out as well as in. A large withdrawal is a paragraph 6 transaction in its own right, which is exactly why the request so often lands at payout.
• Recycled winnings are excluded. Paragraph 7 says no account is taken of uncollected winnings from a previous transaction that are being re-used, so grinding a balance round and round does not inflate the figure.
• A second, higher trigger exists. An occasional transaction of £12,000 or more brings the same obligation by another route.

When you align both of these rules, it makes more sense. The licensing condition prevents a casino from creating a doc retention requirement months prior. The rule creates a genuine requirement that the casino could not have mandated prior, since the amount threshold had not been reached. Requiring a customer to retain documentation at £2,000 is how the rule was designed and implemented. Requiring a customer to retain documentation for a £40 withdrawal from an account that has not been active for two years is what 17.1.1 is referring to.

What the ten casinos say about verification

All the examples that follow are from the operator's British terms or help pages. What is notable is how little of this is presented in an informative manner as a value.

One casino publishes a threshold. All British Casino does something occurring extremely infrequently. It states that verification is not needed for a first withdrawal or deposit request. Verification is required after a certain amount is withdrawn or deposited. The figure stands at £1,400 which is below the £2,000 figure given in the law, meaning the operator has chosen to verify the withdrawal or deposit request at a lower amount than the law requires. The more noteworthy aspect is the operator decided to publish a figure at all.

Grosvenor is at the opposite end of this dilemma, yet still clear about it. It states that verification checks must be done before the withdrawal of funds. You may not appreciate the answer, but you can see it before you deposit. This is the purpose of the disclosure in 17.1.1.

The documents a verification check asks for

bet365's Great Britain terms give the most complete listing of the ten in published form. These verification checks include age, identity, address, and location verification, verification of the source of funds, credit, and fraud prevention checks. It cites a passport, driving licence, birth certificate, financial statements, documentary evidence of the spending on the account, and proof of address.

“Documents to support the expenditure on your account” refers to other aspects. This has nothing to do with identity. This is about affordability, and the rule behind it is a risk management rule for safer gambling and has no connection to a money laundering rule. As to where the money came from and whether you were able to afford to lose it, these two questions are part of two separate regimes, and the thresholds for the second are explained on our safer gambling tools page.

One thing I must clarify. In bet365’s terms, it says that it may pass on the information you have provided to authorised credit referencing agencies, fraud prevention agencies and other authorised third parties for the purposes of identification, credit and fraud checks, and that it may communicate information to its regulators. Most operators have tacked on the same clause. Verification is a form of data processing as well as an upload of documents.

When the automatic verification check fails

The electronic check cross checks the data you entered with the data we hold. It fails on small discrepancies more frequently than on anything suspicious, and the rules are designed for that.

Code 3.2.11 states relevant staff must undergo proper training in the operator's age verification processes, and it points to a specific staff group here. In this case, customer services staff must be trained in the use of alternative forms of identification when primary verification checks indicate an individual is below the legal age. A failure check is a defined failure with a defined fallback, and as such it is incorrect for a support agent to tell you that there is nothing that can be done.

1. Make sure you have correctly filled out the register in the name on your documents. The most common reason for a check to be unmatched is use of a short form of the first name.

2. Use the address it has on file. If you have recently moved, there might be a gap of several months between the time you move and when you are formally updated on the electoral roll and the credit files. This looks to the system as if the individual does not exist at that address.

3. Send the document they have asked for. A bank card should not be used to prove address, a bank statement should be used. Operators define the list of documents because that is the list that their vendor will accept.

4. Ask them to explain specifically what failed. They are permitted to inform you of which element did not match, and knowing whether it was the address or the date of birth changes the guessing game to a simple, five minute solution.

What happens if someone under 18 got through

As shown in the terms, underage gambling is a criminal offence and bet365's wording in Great Britain is the clearest of the ten. Should bet365 become aware that an account holder is under the age of 18, the account is closed, any deposits are returned, all transactions are void, and a report may be made to the relevant regulatory or law enforcement authorities.

You must read this order as this is of most concern to parents. In this case, the deposits are returned. The winnings do not stand. In effect, the gambling is ‘undone’ in both directions.

Code 3.2.11 includes a similar burden on licence holders to offer their gambling websites the capability to install blocking software at an adult (parental or school) level. Blocking software is effective on British casino websites because casinos are obliged to install them.

When a verification hold stops your payout

There are expectations on some holds which are published. MrQ's ‘60 Second Payout Guarantee’ is on hold pending a verification check. Midnite states that completed checks, no regulatory hold, and no open investigations are required before a payout is permitted. William Hill is able to run checks on a withdrawal and delay or withhold the payment. None of these are operators being creative, and all of these are documented.

What is of most concern to parents is a hold that fails the 17.1.1 test. If you are stuck work through the following.

1. To which obligation does the request correspond? A due diligence request under the Money Laundering Regulations; a document that they appear to have misplaced at registration. Only one of these is an issue for you.

2. Communicate that to them in writing. Cite word for word: additional information must not be requested as a condition of withdrawal where it could reasonably have been requested earlier. A dated email also starts the clock for everything below.

3. Provide what is required on time. If the threshold has been crossed, there is no point in arguing, and all the hold does is prolong the time it takes to satisfy the request.

4. Initiate the complaint process at eight weeks, or where you believe no progress will be made. The operator has eight weeks from the date of your complaint to respond to you, and they will then pass it on to their Dispute Resolution Provider. We have linked to these providers on our complaints page.

5. Report this to the Commission. The Commission does not resolve individual disputes, and does license the company. A repeated failure to verify in good time is the type of thing they will also log.

Here’s another thing I want to clarify that mostly eliminates this problem. Withdrawals almost always go back to the method you used to deposit with, and every operator on this site requires payment methods to be in your name. If the card you used has expired or been replaced, deal with that before you have some winnings, because a closed-loop rule in combination with an alternative method that is unverified is the slowest. Which methods each casino supports both ways is shown in our payment methods comparison.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to verify my identity before I can play at a UK casino?

Yes, and before you can deposit. Licence condition 17.1.1 states that operators must verify your name, address and date of birth prior to a customer being able to gamble, and the social responsibility code states that the age of the customer must be verified prior to the customer being able to deposit funds or gamble, or if the customer wishes to play the free-to-play version of a game. This happens, in most cases, in the background and is not visible to the customer.

Can a casino ask for documents only when I try to withdraw?

Not if it reasonably could have asked for the information earlier. According to licence condition 17.1.1 a request to withdraw funds cannot result in a request for additional information as a condition of withdrawal where the licensee could reasonably have requested that information earlier. The condition allows one exception: information that the operator is legally obliged to obtain at that moment which in practice means, money laundering law.

Why did the casino suddenly ask me for documents?

The best answer is likely to be related to a threshold in the Money Laundering Regulations 2017. In Regulation 27, a casino is obligated to conduct customer due diligence for transactions totaling £2,000 or more. This includes deposits for online gambling, collections of winnings, and several connected operations that may be grouped together as opposed to only individual transactions. This obligation is outside the gambling licence which explains why it may occur in a way that is perceived to be arbitrary.

Which UK casino publishes its verification threshold?

Of the ten sampled on this site, only All British Casino names a figure in the public domain. Its help pages state verification is not a precondition for either a first deposit or withdrawal request. Once total withdrawals have reached £1,400 or total deposits have exceeded £1,400, verification becomes necessary. Since this is less than £2,000, it is the operator that has opted to conduct the check prior to the requirement of the law.

What happens to the money if an under-18 opened an account?

The account is closed and the gambling is unwound. Bet365's Great Britain terms provide a clear example of the process. If bet365 discovers a customer is under 18, then the account is closed, deposits are refunded, all transactions including wagers are voided, and a report may be made to the gambling regulator or the police. Deposits are returned but winnings are completely forfeited.