Step one: complain to the company, not the brand
The casino you signed up at is a trading name. The business you entered a contract with is the company named on its Gambling Commission account — and across the 139 brands in our records, 48 companies hold those licences. That company is the party bound by the licence conditions, the party that decides your limits, the party that releases your withdrawal, and the party a complaint has to be addressed to.
In practice this means one thing: find the licensee's name before you write. It is on the brand's page here, and on the casino's own site in the footer. Addressing a complaint to "the {casino name} team" through a support chat is how a dispute stays informal indefinitely; naming the licensed company puts it on the record.
Step two: put it in writing, and be specific
Include the dates, the amounts, the email the account is registered to, and screenshots of anything that might change on the site later. Then state the outcome you want in one sentence: release the withdrawal, reinstate the account, return the balance. A complaint that describes a feeling gets a reply that describes a policy. A complaint that requests a specific action forces an answer about that action.
Keep every date. The next step depends on them.
Step three: eight weeks, then a free adjudicator
Every Gambling Commission licensee must operate a complaints procedure and must refer unresolved complaints to an approved alternative dispute resolution provider. If the operator has not resolved your complaint within eight weeks, you can take it to that provider yourself. It is free to you — the operator pays for the scheme.
The operator is required to tell you which ADR provider it uses. If it will not, that is itself a licence-condition failure and worth reporting. The provider reviews the evidence and issues a decision; under most approved schemes the outcome binds the operator, not you.
What the Gambling Commission will and will not do
This is where most expectations go wrong, so it is worth stating flatly. The Commission will set and enforce licence conditions, investigate operators, issue financial penalties, and suspend or revoke a licence. Its enforcement record is substantial, and complaint patterns are part of what triggers it.
The Commission will not adjudicate your individual dispute, order a specific payment, or recover your money. It is a regulator of businesses rather than a small-claims service. Reporting to it is still worth doing — it is how a pattern becomes visible — but it is not the route to getting a balance back. The ADR provider is that route.
Why the licence matters more than it looks here
37 of the 51 brands reviewed on this site share a licence with another brand on the same list. If you hold accounts at several of them and fall into dispute at one, you are in dispute with the company operating the others: the same complaints desk, the same terms, the same adjudicator, and the same commercial view of you as a customer.
That is the practical argument behind everything else here. The risk tool will collapse a list of casinos into the number of companies it really represents, and the licences page explains how few companies are behind the market. If the brand you have a problem with is not reviewed here, the lookup tool searches the whole register and will usually still name the company.
If the site is not UK-licensed
Then none of the above applies, and that is the hardest version of this problem. No mandated complaints procedure, no approved adjudicator, no fund-protection disclosure, and no British regulator with any authority over the operator. A site advertising that it is "not on GAMSTOP" is telling you exactly this — what that phrase actually means is set out separately.
The check takes a minute: put the domain into the lookup tool. If no licensed British business has declared that address, the complaint routes described on this page do not exist for it.
What this page is not
We are not a casino, not an affiliate of one, and not connected to any operator named on this site, so we cannot access an account, release a withdrawal, recover a balance or intervene in a dispute. Nor is any of this legal advice. What we can do is name the company you are actually dealing with, and say where the free route goes — the register reading behind those names is dated 31st July 2026.
If gambling itself has become the problem rather than one operator, the page on GAMSTOP and self-exclusion is more useful than any complaint. The National Gambling Helpline is free and confidential on 0808 8020 133.
Questions about casino complaints
10 answers
01 Who do I complain to about an online casino?
The licensed company, not the brand. Every casino on this site is operated by a company named on a Gambling Commission account, and that company is the party you contracted with. Its name and account number are on the brand's page here; the register confirms both.
02 What is the eight-week rule?
A Gambling Commission licensee must have a complaints procedure and must refer an unresolved complaint to an approved alternative dispute resolution provider. Eight weeks is the point at which you can take it to that provider yourself if the operator has not resolved it — you do not have to wait for permission.
03 What is ADR and does it cost anything?
Alternative dispute resolution: an independent body that reviews a gambling dispute and issues a decision. It is free to the player — the operator pays. The operator must tell you which provider it uses, and that provider must be one the Gambling Commission has approved.
04 Will the Gambling Commission get my money back?
No, and this is the most common misunderstanding about it. The Commission regulates operators: it sets licence conditions, investigates failures, issues penalties and can suspend or revoke a licence. It does not adjudicate individual disputes and does not recover money for players. Reporting to it still matters, because patterns across complaints drive enforcement.
05 What should I send with a complaint?
Dates, amounts, the account email, and screenshots of anything that has since changed on the site. State plainly what you want — the withdrawal released, the account reinstated, the balance returned. Vague complaints get vague answers; a specific request forces a specific response.
06 The casino says my withdrawal is "pending review". What now?
Ask two separate questions rather than one: is verification complete, and has the payment been released. Those identify which stage is actually stuck, and the answer usually explains the delay. Our withdrawals pages set out the stated windows and the verification step that precedes them.
07 I have a problem at one brand and accounts at its sister sites. Does that matter?
Yes, and it is worth knowing before you escalate. 37 of the 51 brands reviewed here share a licence with another brand on the same list. If you are in dispute with the licensed company, you are in dispute with the company running your other accounts too.
08 Can a casino close my account during a complaint?
It can close or restrict an account under its terms, and it may hold funds while verification or source-of-funds checks are completed. What it cannot do is refuse to return a legitimately won, verified balance. If that happens and the operator will not resolve it, that is exactly what the ADR route exists for.
09 How do I find out who runs a casino that is not on this site?
Use the lookup tool. It indexes every licensee in the Gambling Commission register — 2,664 licensed businesses — together with every domain each has declared, so a brand or a web address usually resolves to a company name you can then complain to.
10 Is a complaint worth making at all?
On the evidence of how the regime works, yes. Operators are required to record complaints, the ADR decision is binding on the operator in most schemes, and complaint patterns are part of what the regulator acts on. The step people skip is the first one: writing to the licensed company by name rather than to a support chat.