The UK 10x wagering cap

What the UK 10x wagering cap says

The cap sits in the Gambling Commission's social responsibility code 5.1.1 (opens in a new tab), the part of the licence conditions that deals with rewards and bonuses. It bars licensees from attaching wagering requirements that make customers play through bonus funds more than 10 times. In plain terms: take the bonus amount, multiply by ten, and that is the most you can be asked to bet before bonus winnings turn into withdrawable cash.

Because it is a social responsibility code provision, compliance is a condition of the operator's licence, not a voluntary standard. A breach can lead the Commission to review the licence, with suspension, revocation or a financial penalty all possible. The same code also says incentive terms must be clear, transparent, fair and readily accessible, which is covered on our page on why bonus terms must be clear.

The Commission defines a wagering requirement as any requirement to make wagers totalling a particular value for funds to become withdrawable. Some sites call the same thing playthrough or rollover. Whatever the label, the 10x ceiling applies to the multiple placed on bonus funds.

The cap is about how many times bonus funds must be played through. It is not a cap on how much you can lose, and it doesn't make any game more likely to pay.

When the 10x wagering cap started: the timeline

The rule went through a long consultation before it took effect. The start date was pushed back once, from December 2025 to January 2026, so offers you read about in late 2025 may still quote older, higher multiples.

The cap arrived at the same moment as the mixed product promotion ban, so January 2026 was the biggest single reset of UK bonus terms in years. For a fuller picture of how the rules stacked up, see our UK bonus rules timeline and the side-by-side look at bonus terms in 2025 vs 2026.

The 10x wagering cap in pounds: worked examples

Wagering is easiest to judge in money, not multiples. The table below shows the maximum wagering allowed for common bonus sizes and what that much play costs on average on a slot with 96% RTP, which means a 4% house edge. The cost column is a long-run average, worked out as wagering multiplied by house edge; any single session can land far above or below it.

Two points stand out. First, a lower-RTP game raises the cost of the same wagering by half again in this example, so the game you play matters as much as the multiple. Second, at 10x the average cost of wagering is below the bonus itself on a 96% slot, which was often not true under older terms. That is a fairer starting point, not a profit: you still stake real sums, and variance decides what is actually left.

How long 10x wagering takes at UK slot speeds

UK online slots must take at least 2.5 seconds per spin under the slot game design rules. Clearing £1,000 of wagering at £1 a spin means 1,000 spins, or at least 41 minutes of pure spinning before any pauses. At 20p a spin the same target needs 5,000 spins and well over three hours. That time element is worth weighing against any bonus expiry window.

Wagering before and after the 10x cap

In its announcement, the Commission noted that some operators had used wagering requirements of up to 60 times. Its own illustration was a £10 bonus with 50x wagering needing £500 of play. Here is how the same £100 bonus looks under older multiples and under the cap.

Under 35x, the average cost of wagering was bigger than the bonus, so on average you would expect the bonus balance to be gone before the target was met. Under 10x the arithmetic leaves room for some of the bonus to survive on average. Our 10x vs 35x wagering comparison works through more scenarios, and the wagering calculator lets you test your own figures.

How to check an offer against the 10x cap

Most UK offer pages now print the multiple clearly, but the sum still needs doing. These steps take a minute and work for any deposit match or bonus-funds offer.

1. Find the bonus amount you would actually receive, not the headline maximum. A 50% match on a £40 deposit is a £20 bonus, not £100.
2. Read which balance the multiple applies to. The cap is written around bonus funds; if the terms mention deposit plus bonus, ask the casino how that fits the rule before opting in.
3. Multiply the bonus by the stated multiple and confirm the result is no more than 10 times the bonus.
4. Check the time allowed to finish wagering and divide the target by a stake you are comfortable with to see how many spins it means.
5. Note any max bet, eligible games and payment exclusions, which the cap does not touch.
6. If a GB-licensed site asks for more than 10x after 19 January 2026, raise it with the casino's complaints team and keep a screenshot of the terms.

What the 10x wagering cap doesn't change

The cap fixes one number. Plenty of other terms still decide whether a bonus suits you, and none of them are limited by the 10x rule.

• Max bet while a bonus is active. Casinos still set their own bonus max bet limits. Casumo's offer terms, for example, allow up to £5 per bet with an active bonus.
• Legal slot stake limits. Separately, online slot spins are capped at £5 for players aged 25 and over and £2 for 18 to 24-year-olds under the online slot stake limits. The lower of the casino's limit and the legal limit applies.
• Expiry. A 10x target with three days to finish is tighter than the same target over a month.
• Eligible games and contribution. Offers can still restrict which games count; see game weighting and check each offer's contribution table.
• Max win or max cashout. A cap on bonus winnings, such as 10bet's £1,000 limit on its welcome bonus, is separate from wagering.
• Payment exclusions. E-wallet and prepaid exclusions remain common and can stop an offer being credited at all.

Free spins, no wagering offers and the 10x cap

On a plain reading, the code catches any incentive that requires customers to play through bonus funds. Where free spin winnings are credited as bonus funds with a playthrough attached, that playthrough is limited to 10 times the winnings. Our answer to whether the 10x cap applies to free spins goes into the detail; when in doubt, the offer terms should say how spin winnings are paid.

Many UK free spins offers now skip wagering altogether, which sits well inside the cap. Coral's current welcome offer, Ladbrokes' daily spins and PlayOJO's 80 spins all pay spin winnings without wagering, according to their published terms. That makes no wagering bonuses the simplest product on the market to value: 100 spins at 10p are worth £10 of play, and at 96% RTP they return about £9.60 on average.

Your own deposit isn't part of the wagering

A related rule, older than the cap, protects your cash. The Commission's guidance on restrictions on withdrawing deposits (opens in a new tab) says players must be able to withdraw their deposit balance at any time, even when a bonus is active, and must not be made to meet wagering requirements before doing so. Wagering can only be required for bonus winnings.

In practice, if you deposit £40 and take a £20 bonus, you can withdraw what remains of your own £40 whenever you like, though doing so usually ends the bonus. Our guide on withdrawing a casino bonus explains what typically happens to the bonus balance when you do.

Why the Gambling Commission chose a 10x cap rather than a ban

The consultation response (opens in a new tab) shows the Commission looked at an outright ban on wagering requirements and at lower caps of 1, 5 or 10 times. It settled on 10x and did not adopt the ban. Commentary on the response points to concern that a ban could push players towards unlicensed sites and would weigh hardest on smaller operators.

The Commission's own framing, in its announcement on safer and simpler promotions (opens in a new tab), is that promotions should be safer and simpler. The reasoning is easy to follow from the numbers above: a high multiple means many more spins before any winnings can be withdrawn, and a lower ceiling shortens that play without removing bonuses altogether. Our page on why bonuses have wagering covers the casino's side of the argument.

Who the 10x wagering cap protects

The cap binds every operator holding a Gambling Commission licence and serving customers in Great Britain. The code text applies to any incentive, so reload offers and existing-customer promotions sit under it as well as welcome bonuses.

• Great Britain: covered. You can confirm a site's licence through the Commission's register; our guide on checking a casino licence shows how.
• Northern Ireland: the Gambling Act 2005 and Commission rules cover Great Britain, so don't assume the same protections apply there. PlayOJO's welcome offer, for instance, excludes Northern Ireland.
• Unlicensed or offshore sites: not covered, and nothing stops them advertising 40x or 50x. They also sit outside UK complaint routes and GAMSTOP.

A 10x requirement is still a cost of play

It would be easy to read the cap as making bonuses safe or cheap. It doesn't. Every £100 of wagering on a 96% slot costs about £4 on average, and results swing widely around that average. A bonus can also encourage longer sessions than you planned, which is exactly the risk the Commission was trying to reduce.

Set a deposit limit before you claim anything, and walk away from a bonus that no longer feels like entertainment. If gambling is causing problems, the National Gambling Helpline is free on 0808 8020 133, run by GamCare (opens in a new tab), and our safer gambling page lists GAMSTOP, NHS clinics and bank gambling blocks.

The 10x wagering cap and our partner offers

Two of our partners run deposit-match offers that sit exactly at the cap. Casumo offers a 50% bonus up to £100 on a first deposit of at least £20 (18+, new customers, opt-in required); the bonus must be wagered 10x within 7 days, with a £5 max bet while it is active, and game, play and payment restrictions apply. A £200 deposit gets the full £100 bonus and £1,000 of wagering.

10bet offers a 100% match up to £25 for new UK customers aged 18+ who choose the casino welcome bonus at sign-up and deposit within 7 days. The bonus is wagered 10x on slots within 3 days, max bonus winnings are £1,000, and Skrill and Neteller deposits are excluded. A £25 deposit means £250 of wagering.

If you would rather avoid wagering entirely, Coral's offer gives 100 free spins at 10p each after a £10 slots bet (18+, new players, certain deposit types excluded, 48 hours to accept, spins valid 7 days, no wagering on spin winnings). Terms apply to every offer; read them in full on the casino's promotion page before you deposit. Our casino bonuses hub and the wider UK casino bonus rules section have more.

18+. Gambling should be entertainment that costs money, not a way to make it. Decide a budget before you play: set a budget. Free, confidential help: National Gambling Helpline 0808 8020 133.