The head of Great Britain’s gambling regulator has warned that cryptocurrency gambling is accelerating in the illegal market, and that the policy questions it raises may need answers sooner than previously assumed.
Andrew Rhodes, chief executive of the Gambling Commission, told international regulators in Toronto in October that what once looked like a longer-term issue now appears closer, as crypto use spreads among younger consumers and offshore gambling brands continue to target them.
In his keynote at the International Association of Gaming Regulators (IAGR) Conference, Rhodes said the UK has no licensed operators offering crypto gambling, yet the practice is “widespread” in unlicensed channels. He argued that the decisions ultimately sit with the government, not individual regulators, as ministers develop a broader UK crypto rulebook scheduled to take effect from 2027.
A Shorter Clock on Crypto Gambling
Rhodes delivered the opening keynote at the IAGR 2025 Conference on 20 October. The Gambling Commission later published the speech as drafted, noting it may differ slightly from the delivered version.
Within a wide survey of the UK market, Rhodes returned to a theme he said regulators are likely to hear “a lot more” about: the steady growth of cryptocurrency use in and around gambling.
He said the timetable has changed. “I think that is now maybe 12 months, 24 months away as we are seeing this grow,” Rhodes told the room, describing a faster shift than he had anticipated.
A legal market that does not currently offer crypto play
Rhodes said there are currently no licensed UK operators offering cryptocurrency-based gambling. In the same passage, he called it “difficult to see how we would license those who are offering crypto casinos,” pointing to the regulatory friction created by traceability and financial crime controls.
The Commission’s own guidance frames crypto as an added risk layer rather than a standard payment rail. It notes stakeholder interest in crypto assets as a way to pay for gambling, to fund gambling businesses, or to deliver products built around blockchain.
That distinction matters in the UK context, where licensing remains tied to the statutory objectives around keeping gambling fair, open, and free from crime, and where payments are a central part of compliance oversight.
Source of funds questions sit at the centre of licensing scrutiny
In a March 2023 guidance note on blockchain technology and crypto assets, the Gambling Commission said it had received multiple licence applications where applicants planned to fund gambling businesses through profits from crypto investments, including initial coin offerings.
The regulator said it had “noticed that applicants are having difficulty evidencing the source of funds when crypto-assets are included in their application,” and warned that the anonymity associated with some crypto assets has “consistently caused problems” when applicants attempt to provide satisfactory evidence.
The same guidance lists additional risks where crypto is accepted directly, including assessing the source of funds, volatility against fiat values and how that might affect deposit limits and anti-money laundering triggers, the cost of fees, and the security of funds held.
Discussion of these constraints has played out in industry coverage as well, with BonusFinder and other news desks tracking how compliance requirements designed for bank-based payments can struggle to map neatly onto on-chain value transfers.
Rhodes calls it a government decision as the UK’s 2027 crypto regime takes shape
Rhodes framed the issue as larger than gambling supervision alone. “These are going to be governmental-level questions,” he said, adding that the pressure “is definitely not going to go away.”
His remarks land at a moment when the UK government is building a wider regulatory perimeter for crypto assets. On 15 December 2025, HM Treasury said “firm and proportionate rules will come into force from 2027,” bringing crypto firms under Financial Conduct Authority supervision in a model closer to existing financial products. Chancellor Rachel Reeves said: “Bringing crypto into the regulatory perimeter is a crucial step in securing the UK’s position as a world-leading financial centre in the digital age.”
Reuters has reported the finance ministry’s timetable as beginning in October 2027. The sequence matters for gambling because it highlights a near-term period where crypto activity continues to grow, while the UK’s broader rules are still moving through consultation and implementation.
Illegal Market Gravity and Enforcement Limits
Rhodes argued that crypto gambling is already common where UK licensing conditions do not apply. In Toronto, he said crypto use is widespread in the illegal market, even as regulated operators remain outside it.
The Gambling Commission has also been public about the scale of online enforcement work. In its October 2025 research into illegal online gambling disruption, the Commission said that since April 2024, it had referred 447,778 URLs to Google and Bing and seen 287,961 URLs removed.
Those disruption numbers sit alongside a wider question raised in the keynote: how regulators gather evidence and reduce harm when offshore brands route payments outside traditional rails and promote themselves through digital platforms, affiliates, and search listings.
Rhodes described crypto adoption as one driver that could widen the gap between licensed operators and offshore competitors, particularly if younger customers treat crypto assets as routine spending tools.
A generational cohort and the “space” problem
In the keynote, Rhodes linked adoption to age. He said people under 40 are using cryptocurrencies more, and argued that for some, crypto assets are “more dominant than Fiat currency or fiat-based assets.”
That shift, he said, creates a cohort that can feel shut out of the legal market. Rhodes described a “generational cohort” who, if they are using cryptocurrencies, “do not have a space in the legitimate market.”
The speech placed crypto within a broader set of trends reshaping regulation, including artificial intelligence in customer interactions and the growth of hyper-personalised digital marketing, both of which Rhodes said can raise intensity and risk when not managed carefully.
What the timeline suggests about the next phase of debate
Rhodes did not outline a ready-made policy proposal for crypto gambling. Instead, he signalled that the conversation may be pulled forward by consumer behaviour, illegal market realities, and the parallel build of the UK’s 2027 crypto framework.
In practical terms, that leaves regulators and government departments facing overlapping questions about identity, traceability, and consumer protection, as crypto moves closer to mainstream finance while remaining a feature of offshore gambling ecosystems.
Conclusion
Rhodes’ central message in Toronto was about urgency, not inevitability. By placing the issue on a 12 to 24-month horizon and pointing to the government as the decision maker, the Gambling Commission chief effectively put crypto gambling on the near-term policy agenda, well before the UK’s 2027 crypto milestones are due to begin.
