Gibraltar Gambling Act 2025: GOSS licence explained

Gibraltar’s Gambling Operator Support Services (GOSS) licence, introduced under the Gambling Act 2025, becomes fully enforceable from 1 October 2026 following a six-month transition that began on 1 April 2026. The licence formalises regulatory control over affiliates, upstream shareholders and customer fund holders that previously sat outside the perimeter, closing a structural gap that groups had used for two decades under the Gambling Act 2005.

The new Act received assent on 23 March 2026 and commenced on 1 April 2026, with most provisions in force from that date. It was presented in Parliament by Minister for Justice, Trade and Industry Nigel Feetham, who described the framework as designed to keep pace with a fast-changing industry. Andrew Lyman, head of Gibraltar’s Gambling Division, summarised the reach of the new regime in a single line:

Any gambling business now managed and controlled in or from Gibraltar potentially falls within scope.

From operator-based to activity-based licensing

The 2005 regime regulated entities. The 2025 Act regulates activities. Under the old framework, the Commissioner’s supervisory grip sat primarily on the company taking the bets. Surrounding businesses, including affiliate networks, holding companies and firms holding player money, could affect player protection and AML risk without holding a gambling licence or being directly subject to enforcement.

The 2025 Act closes that gap by defining a list of “regulated activities” in section 17 and prohibiting any person from carrying them on in or from Gibraltar without a licence. Three licence categories now sit under the same Act: B2C Gambling Operator’s licence, B2B Gambling Operator’s licence, and the new Gambling Operator Support Services licence (section 17(8)). The Act also introduces a Gambling Appeals Tribunal and a range of proportionate enforcement powers that go beyond the previous option of licence suspension or revocation. Administrative penalties, cease-and-desist orders and prohibition orders are now part of the Commissioner’s toolkit, and penalties can be enforced as civil debt.

Gibraltar operators are absorbing these structural changes at the same time as the wider impact of the UK’s major gambling tax increases, which lifted online casino duty to 40% and sports betting to 25%. The two pressures together are driving a material review of Gibraltar corporate structures.

The four GOSS activities

The substance of the GOSS licence sits in section 17(1)(f), which defines four categories of regulated activity.

Under (i), conducting, managing, arranging, booking, facilitating or providing advertising or marketing services for gambling, wherever in the world the gambling takes place, is a regulated activity unless it qualifies as exempt advertising under section 18. Under (ii), being a “Relevant Owner” of a Relevant Company, directly or indirectly owning more than 25% of the issued shares or being able to exercise significant influence over management, is a regulated activity in its own right. Under (iii), holding or managing customer funds in connection with remote gambling, other than by a licensed credit institution, requires a GOSS licence. Under (iv), the Minister retains power to prescribe additional activities by regulation.

Section 17(5) gives the Minister ongoing power to add, remove or modify regulated activities without amending the Act. Operators and service providers should read the current list as a floor rather than a ceiling. As new business models appear around the gambling sector, such as data providers, AI compliance services, payment intermediaries or prediction market makers, the regulator can pull them into the GOSS perimeter by regulation.

Upstream owners are now inside the perimeter

The Relevant Owner trigger in section 17(1)(f)(ii) is the most consequential structural change in the new regime. A company, partnership or trust that is incorporated, registered, established or managed and controlled in or from Gibraltar, and that directly or indirectly owns more than 25% of a Relevant Company or exercises significant influence over its management, is treated as carrying on a regulated activity and requires a GOSS licence.

The 25% threshold mirrors the ultimate beneficial ownership test under AML rules. That alignment is deliberate. Under the 2005 Act, upstream shareholders were assessed through fit-and-proper checks at the operator level but did not themselves hold a gambling licence. Bringing them directly inside the licensing regime means the Commissioner now has a licence to vary, suspend or revoke at the holding-company level rather than only at the operator level.

For international groups with Gibraltar-incorporated holding structures, the practical effect is a review of the corporate chart. Any entity sitting above a B2C or B2B licence holder that crosses the ownership or significant-influence threshold needs to apply for its own GOSS licence during the transition window.

The intra-group carve-out and its limits

Section 17(2) softens the perimeter for activities conducted between members of the same group. Where a fellow group member provides marketing services, customer fund services or other prescribed activities to a B2C or B2B licence holder inside the group, no separate GOSS licence is required for that activity. Reciprocal flows in the opposite direction are also covered.

Section 17(3) then carves out the carve-out. The intra-group exception does not apply to Relevant Owners under section 17(1)(f)(ii). A holding company sitting above a Gibraltar licensee is not rescued by being inside the same group. The licence sits on the upstream entity.

Section 17(4) provides clarifying relief: a shareholder that owns shares in a licence holder but not in a Relevant Company does not trigger the Relevant Owner test. That narrow exception aside, the structural design of the perimeter makes holding-company licensing largely unavoidable for groups with a Gibraltar footprint.

Exempt advertising is a narrow door

Section 18 defines the only carve-out from the marketing limb of GOSS. Advertising or marketing is exempt where three conditions are met together: the work is carried out on behalf of a licence holder, the advertiser is in the general business of advertising or marketing, and the publications or broadcasting media are intended primarily for an audience in Gibraltar.

The third condition is the binding one. International affiliate marketing, cross-border social-media campaigns and influencer deals aimed at non-Gibraltar audiences fall outside section 18 and inside GOSS. Gibraltar-based affiliate networks serving UK, European or offshore operators need a GOSS licence to continue operating in or from the jurisdiction after the transition period ends. Hassans partners Andrew Montegriffo, Louise Federico and Anna Buhler have flagged that a common Gibraltar-incorporated marketing company structure, set up as part of cross-jurisdictional indirect tax planning, sits squarely inside the new perimeter.

Quick reference: who needs a GOSS licence

Fees and the cost calculus

Gibraltar’s current gambling licence fees sit at £100,000 per vertical for B2C operators and £85,000 for B2B operators, with a £10,000 application fee in each case. A tiered B2C model has also been consulted on that would charge £50,000 for operators under £20m GGY and £100,000 above that threshold. Section 155 of the 2025 Act delegates fee-setting to the Minister, so the final schedule under the new regime has yet to be gazetted.

Law firm Hassans has estimated the annual GOSS licence fee at around £50,000, though final figures have not been published. The estimate reflects the narrower supervisory perimeter of GOSS entities, which sit one step back from the point of sale.

The cost calculus was part of the policy logic. Under the old regime, groups had an incentive to keep as little economic activity inside the licensed entity as possible and push marketing, treasury and holding functions into unlicensed affiliates outside the regulator’s reach. A large operator could in theory book most of its Gibraltar economic activity through a marketing services subsidiary or a customer-funds vehicle and argue that none of those entities was conducting regulated gambling. GOSS removes that route. It also broadens the fee base, which matters for Gibraltar’s regulatory economics in a period where Gibraltar is positioning itself alongside jurisdictions like Malta and the Isle of Man on the basis of compliance credibility rather than cost competition.

What operators do next

Schedule 8 of the Act sets out transitional arrangements. Businesses that now require authorisation but did not under the previous regime have six months from the 1 April 2026 commencement date to file. The clock runs until 1 October 2026.

The next two quarters require a mapping exercise for every Gibraltar-facing group. Each function that intersects with the regulated activities in section 17(1)(f), including marketing, customer fund services, and upstream ownership, needs to be assessed against the Act and either pulled inside an existing B2C or B2B licence, relicensed separately under GOSS, or restructured out of Gibraltar. Section 40 of the Act adds a parallel test for “sufficient substantive presence”, meaning that licensing will also depend on local operations, infrastructure and economic contribution, closing off the brass-plate structures that the 2005 regime tolerated.

The Gambling Division has said more guidance on support-service licensing is expected in the coming months. Between now and October, the questions that stay open, particularly around dual B2B and B2C licensing for cross-border models and how in-house group marketing teams will be treated, will determine how much of the Gibraltar industry restructures voluntarily and how much waits for enforcement.

Source: Government of Gibraltar