The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has issued a formal warning to Spribe OÜ, the Estonian gaming technology company behind the Aviator crash game, after a licence review found the supplier had operated without the appropriate licence for more than four years.
What the review found
The Commission conducted its review under section 116 of the Gambling Act 2005. Its conclusion, published on 12 June 2026, was that Spribe had been providing gambling facilities without holding the correct operating licence between 28 May 2021 and 30 October 2025.
The breach centred on hosting. Spribe held a gambling software licence but had been hosting its own games on behalf of licensed UK operators without the separate hosting licence the Commission requires for that activity. Games from Spribe — including Aviator, which had become one of the most-played crash titles in the UK market — were live with operators including Paddy Power, 888 Casino, BetVictor, Genting Casino, and BetMGM during the period in question.
The Commission determined that by operating outside its licence boundary, Spribe had failed to uphold one of the three core licensing objectives set out in section 1 of the Act: preventing gambling from being a source of crime or disorder, being associated with crime or disorder, or being used to support crime. The finding gave rise to concerns about the competence of the licensee, which the Commission characterises as a suitability question under its enforcement framework.
The suspension and its aftermath
The UKGC had moved against Spribe once the hosting issue came to light. On 30 October 2025, it suspended Spribe’s operating licence under section 118(2) of the Act, directing the company to halt all hosting activity immediately and ordering it to notify affected operator partners of the service disruption. At the point of suspension, the Commission stated the breach constituted “serious non-compliance” and reminded the industry that providing gambling facilities in Great Britain without a valid licence is a criminal offence under section 33 of the Act.
Spribe attributed the situation to a technical configuration issue rather than deliberate evasion. The company said it took the matter seriously, acknowledged the mistake, and moved to obtain the necessary hosting licence. The suspension was lifted on 30 March 2026, five months after it was imposed, once the Commission was satisfied the licensing position had been corrected.
The review under section 116 then ran its course, concluding in the warning issued under section 117(1)(a). That provision allows the Commission to impose a warning — the lightest sanction in its toolkit — at the conclusion of a licence review. The Commission noted that Spribe co-operated throughout the investigation and took corrective steps to address the concerns raised.
Context: B2B hosting compliance under scrutiny
The Spribe case sits within a broader pattern of the UKGC tightening its oversight of B2B suppliers, particularly around hosting arrangements. The hosting licence requirement exists because companies that serve their own games directly to players — even indirectly through the technical architecture — are effectively operating as gambling facilities providers, not just software vendors. The distinction matters for anti-money laundering and crime prevention obligations, which attach to licence holders.
Spribe’s case was unusual in scale. The unlicensed hosting period ran for more than four years and covered one of the most commercially significant crash game titles in the regulated market. The fact that the regulator concluded with a warning rather than a financial penalty or revocation reflects the co-operation Spribe showed and the corrective action it took — but the Commission’s published decision makes clear the competence concern was real.
Separately, Spribe has been involved in parallel legal proceedings in multiple jurisdictions over the Aviator brand. A UK court backed Spribe in an Aviator copyright dispute in May 2026, while Brazilian courts have produced conflicting outcomes on related trademark and injunction claims.
For the UK regulatory landscape, the warning adds to the Commission’s enforcement record against B2B suppliers, signalling that gaps between licence categories — software versus hosting — are not treated as technicalities. Operators that rely on supplier infrastructure for hosting activity will likely face increased pressure to verify the licence coverage of their technology partners covers every regulated function being performed.
Source: UK Gambling Commission
