Gibraltar’s new Gambling Act will look outward and not to Westminster to help gambling licences in a period of generational transition, Andrew Lyman, Gambling Commissioner, tells iGaming Expert.
Two months since its declaration on 26 November, the ramifications of the Autumn Statement continue to dominate UK gambling’s discourse and agenda.
From April, UK licences must adopt the first measure of a new tax plan, raising remote gambling duties on online casino games from 21% to 41%, marking a new inflection point for all UK stakeholders.
Nowhere will the fallout from the budget’s adoption be more closely followed than in Gibraltar, which maintains its status as the principal operating hub for UK gambling licences.
“The adjustment will be difficult, but it’s not terminal,” Lyman, Head of the Gambling Division in Gibraltar, tells iGaming Expert.
This is a familiar occurrence for the overseas British territory, as once again, decisions taken in Westminster have led to systemic shock. Over the past decade, Gibraltar has already faced the political disruptions of Brexit, its botched negotiations and prolonged uncertainty surrounding the Spain–Gibraltar treaty.
Yet this shock may cut deeper. Gambling licences and their income contribute around 50% of Gibraltar’s corporate tax revenues, and a new reality is emerging as operators adjust to effective tax rates approaching 85%, forcing a hard recalibration of profitability.
“Let’s be straight…. There is going to be a significant fall in earnings, with many predicting a 60–75% impact on EBITDA,” Lyman says. “That has a knock-on effect on corporate tax and what that leaves the Gibraltar government with.”
“We are facing a challenging situation around the allocation of economic resources and tax revenue,” he adds, “and the majority of that revenue funds healthcare, social care, elderly care and public housing.”
Gibraltar now faces another juncture in its governance of gambling, but as Lyman stresses, this will not result in a “retrenchment from the sector”. Instead, his team and ministers are finalising the articles of a new Gibraltar Gambling Bill designed to reflect the realities of a global gambling industry.
Regulated at the dawn of the online era, Gibraltar became the hub for the UK’s tier-one gambling operators, with UK-facing businesses now accounting for around 80% of licences domiciled in the territory. While that concentration delivered scale and stability, Lyman believes the next phase must be defined by diversification rather than dependence.
“We ended up with a sector that was 75–80% UK-facing,” he notes. “That wasn’t by design; it was simply how the market evolved. Now we need to look outward.”
Crucially, the forthcoming Gambling Act is not a fiscal response to the UK’s tax hike, nor an attempt to replace lost revenue through licensing.
“The new Act was never about generating revenue for government,” Lyman says. “It’s about regulatory control and recognising that the gambling landscape has changed fundamentally since 2005.”
Those changes are structural. Gambling businesses are now multi-jurisdictional, technology-led and increasingly diversifying their business models — conditions the existing framework was never designed to accommodate.
As a result, the new governance model introduces clearer routes to market for B2B suppliers and games studios, a tiered licensing regime that reflects scale and risk, and a more sophisticated assessment of management and control structures. It also gives regulators the tools to engage directly with crypto and digital-asset-led businesses seeking to transition into regulated environments.
“The industry has moved on significantly in the last 20 years, especially in how businesses are structured, where technology sits, and how products are delivered,” Lyman says. “The legislation has to reflect that reality if we’re going to regulate effectively.”
“We cannot regulate today’s industry on the assumption that everything sits physically in one place,” he adds. “What matters is where businesses are managed and controlled.”
In a period of heightened fiscal pressure, Gibraltar views regulatory certainty as a stabiliser rather than a constraint.
“In a time like this, the worst thing you can do is introduce uncertainty,” Lyman says. “Operators need clarity and predictability if they are going to invest, adapt and remain sustainable.”
While the Act modernises Gibraltar’s framework, Lyman is clear that it does so without lowering standards.
“This is not deregulation,” he stated, “It’s about being proportionate and sensible.”
As 2026 begins, Gibraltar is ready to set out a renewed vision for gambling governance, shaped by the realities of a global, multi-jurisdictional sector and informed by lessons learned from repeated external shocks. The objective is not to distance itself from the UK market, but to ensure that Gibraltar’s regulatory and economic model is no longer overly exposed to policy upheavals beyond its control.
“This is about putting Gibraltar on a footing that’s sustainable for the long term,” Lyman concludes. “The industry will continue to change, and our responsibility is to make sure the framework is strong enough, flexible enough and clear enough to evolve with it.”
