Gambling Regulation Bill: Rules and Changes in 2026

2026 is the year gambling regulation stopped being an operator problem and became an affiliate problem. Three changes tell the whole story: the UK doubled its online casino tax from 21% to 40% on 1 April, Brazil made affiliates directly liable for ad breaches in July, and New Zealand banned affiliate marketing for online casinos outright.

If you buy traffic, run a review site or manage an iGaming brand, the gambling regulation bill wave decides which GEOs stay profitable and which quietly close. Below is what actually changed, market by market, with dates and numbers you can check.

What Is the Gambling Regulation Bill?

The phrase means two different things, and mixing them up is where most confusion starts.

1. A specific law — Ireland’s. The Gambling Regulation Bill 2022 was passed as the Gambling Regulation Act 2024, replacing Irish laws dating back to the Betting Act 1931 and the Gaming and Lotteries Act 1956. It created the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland (GRAI), formally established by commencement order on 4 March 2025.

What the Irish gambling bill introduced:

• One regulator, one licensing regime covering in-person betting, remote betting, online casino, lotteries and charitable gaming
• Advertising watershed — no gambling ads on TV, radio or on-demand media between 5:30am and 9:00pm
• Ban on gambling on credit — no credit cards, no operator credit lines
• National Gambling Exclusion Register — one self-exclusion that applies across every licensed operator
• Penalties up to €20 million or 10% of turnover, whichever is greater

The rollout is phased. B2C betting licence applications opened in December 2025, remote gaming (online casino) licences followed by the end of Q1 2026, and the remaining licence types are due by the end of 2027.

2. A category of reform. More broadly, “gambling regulation bill” describes the wave of legislation modernising online gambling law in dozens of markets at once. The details differ; the direction doesn’t. Every framework now pulls licensing, advertising, consumer protection and tax into a single supervisory perimeter — and extends accountability past the operator to affiliates, ad networks and payment providers. At the sharpest end, a market closes altogether: India banned real-money online gaming outright in 2025.

What Are the Main Changes in Gambling Regulations in 2026?

Tax: the UK Doubled the Cost of Online Casino

Announced in the Autumn Budget 2025, Remote Gaming Duty rose from 21% to 40% for accounting periods beginning on or after 1 April 2026 — the steepest single increase in UK gambling tax history. Bingo duty was abolished at the same time, and a new 25% remote betting rate under General Betting Duty follows on 1 April 2027 (online bets on UK horseracing stay at 15%).

The Treasury expects the package to raise over £1 billion a year and openly assumed operators would pass most of the cost to consumers through worse prices and payouts.

For affiliates the mechanism is simple: duty comes out of gross gaming yield, which is the same pot that funds revshare and CPA. UK-facing operators responded by trimming welcome bonuses, free spins and loyalty rewards — the exact hooks most casino creatives are built on.

The Netherlands ran the same experiment earlier. Its rate went 30.5% → 34.2% (2025) → 37.8% (1 January 2026), and with the KSA levy the effective burden sits near 40% of GGR. The result was not the revenue the Ministry of Finance projected: licensed brands including Tombola and LiveScore Bet left the market, and the KSA’s own estimate put revenue-based channelisation at roughly 53% — more money flowing to unlicensed sites than licensed ones.

Advertising: Brazil Put Affiliates in the Liability Chain

Brazil regulated fixed-odds betting under Law 14,790/2023, taxes operators at roughly 12% of GGR, and had 87 licensed operators with 14 applications pending as of 30 June 2026. In July 2026 the Secretariat of Prizes and Betting (SPA) tightened the advertising rules hard:

• Interministerial Ordinance 73/2026 (in force 10 July) applies not only to operators but to agencies, media, platforms, influencers and affiliates — anyone who produces, promotes, sponsors or boosts a betting ad
• Ordinance SPA/MF 1,964/2026 (July 2026) requires standardised warnings occupying at least 10% of every ad, with messages such as “Betting can cause addiction” and “Betting isn’t an investment”
• Urgency messaging, “easy money” claims and expert endorsements are prohibited; any ad appealing to under-18s is treated as abusive
• Affiliate links, promo codes and redirects must point only to federally authorised operators
• Licensed operators cannot accept crypto payments

That first point is the one to internalise. Until 2026, betting regulation in Brazil pointed at operators. Now a non-compliant campaign exposes everyone who touched it.

Licensing: New Zealand Closed the Market — and Banned Affiliates

The Online Casino Gambling Act 2026 came into force on 1 May 2026, with detailed regulations from 3 July. It is the most restrictive framework any mature market introduced this cycle:

• Up to 15 licences only, each valid for three years, one brand per licence, maximum three per applicant
• From 1 December 2026, only operators holding or actively applying for a licence may serve New Zealanders
• Penalties up to NZD 5 million for a company, NZD 300,000 for an individual
• Affiliate marketing, sponsorships and paid endorsements are prohibited for licensed operators
• No broadcast ads during live events or within 30 minutes either side; no ads reaching audiences more than 20% under-18
• Credit cards banned, one account per platform, mandatory deposit and session limits

New Zealand is a warning shot: a regulator can legalise online casino and still write affiliates out of the acquisition model entirely.

Consumer Protection: the Same Four Tools Everywhere

Whatever the jurisdiction, the same consumer protection package keeps appearing — which makes it easy to predict what a new casino regulation bill will contain:

1. Credit bans — Ireland, New Zealand and the Philippines all prohibit funding play with credit
2. National self-exclusion registers — Ireland’s is being built on the model of the UK’s GamStop and the Dutch CRUKS
3. Deposit and session limits — the Netherlands is going further with a proposed cross-operator limit measured across all licensed brands
4. Age and affordability checks — identity verification before deposit, behavioural risk flags, and in some markets a higher legal gambling age for high-risk products

How Does Gambling Regulation Affect Affiliates and Advertising?

Three practical consequences, in order of how fast they hit your P&L.

Payouts compress before rules do. A tax rise reaches you through the operator’s promo budget long before any regulator writes to you. When UK duty doubled, cuts to bonuses and loyalty spend followed within weeks. Model your unit economics against the new tax rate in every GEO you run.

Disclosure is now a legal artefact, not a badge. Brazil requires warning text on 10% of the ad surface. Ireland requires licence-linked transparency. A generic “18+” in the footer is no longer compliance in most regulated markets — and in Brazil, the affiliate is on the hook, not just the brand.

Channel risk is diverging sharply. Influencer and creator content is the highest-risk format of 2026: Brazil restricts endorsements, New Zealand bans them, and the Philippine bill below targets them explicitly. Paid search and programmatic sit lowest — provided geo-targeting is exact and landing pages carry the required disclosures. Push and native depend entirely on GEO enforcement.

Is Online Gambling More Regulated Than Land-Based Casinos in 2026?

Yes — and the gap widened this year. Online gambling law now moves faster than the traditional casino regulation bill tradition, because remote play is where the volume, the harm data and the tax leakage are.

The UK made the split explicit: online casino went to 40% while physical casino duty bands were frozen for 2026–27. Regulators are pricing perceived harm by product and channel, not by industry.

What’s Changing Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act: New Gambling Tax Laws for Gamblers

None of the above touches the other 2026 gambling story making headlines in the US. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), signed into law in July 2025, does not change licensing or advertising — it rewrites the federal tax law on gambling losses, and the new tax law reaches every gambler, not just operators and affiliates.

That makes it an affiliate issue too. If you run US-facing casino and betting programmes, your highest-value players are the ones this change hits hardest, and player LTV is what your revshare is built on.

The New Tax Law: Gambling Losses Capped at 90% of Winnings

Under the old rule, a gambler could deduct 100% of gambling losses against gambling winnings, dollar for dollar. Starting with tax year 2026 (returns filed in 2027), the new tax law limits the gambling loss deduction to 90% of losses. A casual bettor who won $50,000 and lost $50,000 over the year — a break-even outcome — can deduct only $45,000, leaving $5,000 of taxable income on a year they didn’t actually profit from.

The change sits in OBBBA Section 70114, which amended Section 165(d) of the tax code. Critics call the result “phantom income”: tax owed on money the player never kept.

How Gambling Loss Deductions Work Now: What You Win, What You Lose

The gambling loss deduction still exists, but two conditions catch people out: you can only claim it if you itemize on Schedule A instead of taking the standard deduction, and the 90% cap applies whether you file as a casual player or as a professional gambler on Schedule C.

A professional poker player who cashed $400,000 across poker tournaments against $380,000 in buy-ins and expenses — an actual $20,000 profit — can deduct only $342,000, so $58,000 shows up as taxable income, nearly three times the real profit.

Why the Gambling Tax Changes May Hit Professional Gamblers Hardest

High-volume players — poker tournament regulars, sports bettors, horse racing regulars — turn over far more money than they ever take home, so the missing 10% compounds fast. Casual gamblers who have one big night at a casino feel the same new tax law the first time they file, because the loss deduction no longer offsets winnings dollar for dollar. There is no separate provision for retirees either: gambling winnings are taxable income at any age.

Reporting Requirements Have Not Disappeared

One requirement did ease. The IRS confirmed that, for payments made from 1 January 2026, the W-2G reporting threshold rises from $1,200 to $2,000 — the first change since 1977 — and will be adjusted for inflation each year afterwards. Fewer mid-range slot and bingo wins now trigger a form.

That does not remove the underlying reporting requirement to declare gambling income on your tax return. It only changes when a casino must file the paperwork for you; winnings below the threshold are still taxable, and state rules are unaffected.

One New Rule Among Many: State Gambling Laws Keep Shifting Too

The federal loss-deduction change is one new rule among several, and it runs on a separate track from state law. States are rewriting their own gambling laws at the same time — the sweepstakes bans and enforcement actions listed in the next section all landed in 2026. A gambler or affiliate tracking only the OBBBA gambling tax law risks missing a state-level rule that hits the same quarter.

Strategy Adjustments Under the Big Beautiful Bill Gambling Tax

A legislative fix, the FAIR BET Act (H.R. 4304), would restore the 100% gambling loss deduction. It has bipartisan co-sponsors and a discharge petition behind it, but the House Rules Committee declined to advance it as an amendment to the defense bill, and it remains with the Ways and Means Committee. A companion measure, the FULL HOUSE Act, was blocked in the Senate on procedural grounds. As of August 2026, neither chamber has scheduled a floor vote, and the 90% cap is the law in force for tax year 2026.

Until that changes, the practical strategy is the one that survives an audit: log every session — date, buy-in, win or loss — so you can model what you actually owe rather than finding out at filing time, and talk to a tax advisor before assuming last year’s numbers still apply.

Bills and Deadlines to Watch Before 2027

• Philippines — Senate Bill 2347, filed in late July 2026, proposes a tobacco-style ban on gambling ads, sponsorships, celebrity endorsements and influencer campaigns across all media, with a one-year transition. Still a bill, not law. PAGCOR already bans primetime broadcast ads (5:30–8:30pm), outdoor advertising, credit cards and crypto deposits.
• Netherlands — the June 2026 policy package proposes an online gambling advertising ban, a bonus ban, cross-operator deposit limits and a 21+ age floor for high-risk products.
• Brazil — the SPA consultation on permanent commercial-authorisation rules ran to 9 September 2026 and will set capital requirements and renewal terms.
• Curaçao — the LOK transition period ends 24 December 2026. From that date licensees may not work with unregistered suppliers, so any Curaçao-licensed brand you promote needs its own status re-checked.
• USA — sweepstakes casinos are being banned state by state. Indiana’s HB 1052 took effect 1 July 2026 with civil penalties up to $100,000; California enacted a ban and Illinois issued 65 cease-and-desist letters.

Curacao Gaming License: Full Guide for 2025

FAQ

What is the Gambling Regulation Bill?

In the strict sense, it is Ireland’s Gambling Regulation Bill 2022, enacted as the Gambling Regulation Act 2024. It created the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland, introduced a single licensing regime for online and in-person gambling, a 5:30am–9:00pm advertising watershed, a ban on gambling on credit, a national self-exclusion register and penalties of up to €20 million or 10% of turnover. More loosely, the term covers the wider category of reform laws modernising gambling regulation across markets in 2025–2026.

What are the main changes in gambling regulations in 2026?

Four: higher tax (UK Remote Gaming Duty from 21% to 40%, Dutch tax at 37.8% of GGR), tighter advertising (Brazil’s mandatory 10% warning space, Ireland’s watershed), stricter licensing (New Zealand capped at 15 licences, Curaçao’s LOK transition closing on 24 December 2026), and deeper consumer protection duties — credit bans, deposit limits and national self-exclusion registers.

How does gambling regulation affect affiliates and advertising?

Directly, in 2026. Brazil’s Interministerial Ordinance 73/2026 extends advertising liability to affiliates and influencers, not just operators. New Zealand prohibits affiliate marketing for licensed online casinos altogether. Elsewhere the effect is commercial rather than legal: tax rises cut into gross gaming yield, which is the same pool that funds revshare and CPA, so payouts and bonus budgets shrink. Verifying licence status per geo and per product before you send traffic is now baseline risk management.

Is online gambling more regulated in 2026?

Yes. Online gambling law is tightening faster than land-based casino regulation because remote play generates most of the growth, the harm data and the tax gap. The UK illustrates it: online casino duty doubled to 40% from April 2026 while land-based casino duty bands were frozen. Regulators also increasingly enforce against the marketing layer — affiliates, ad networks and payment processors — because those sit within reach even when the operator does not.

Which markets carry the highest compliance risk for affiliates right now?

New Zealand (affiliate marketing prohibited), Brazil (direct affiliate liability for ad breaches), and any market where you are promoting an operator without a local licence. Cross-border traffic is the common failure point: a foreign licence does not authorise the operator to serve local players, and the affiliate is usually the easiest party to enforce against.

What is the 90% rule in gambling losses?

It is the new tax law under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act: for tax year 2026 onward, US taxpayers can deduct only 90% of gambling losses against gambling winnings, instead of the previous 100%. The unused 10% cannot be carried forward, which can leave a break-even gambler owing tax on income they never actually kept.

Do senior citizens have to pay taxes on gambling winnings?

Yes. There is no senior exemption — gambling winnings are taxable income at any age under US federal law. The indirect effect for retirees is that extra gambling income can raise combined income and make a larger share of Social Security benefits taxable, on top of the 90% cap now limiting what losses can offset.

What do you think?

0

Super

0

Like

0

Neutral

0

Sad

0

Skeptical