About this legal desk

Why this desk exists and how it stays independent

NGC Legal exists to provide a plain, solicitor-reviewed account of the legal framework that governs remote gambling in Great Britain and the position of a British consumer who is thinking about, or has already transacted with, a website that sits outside the licensing perimeter of the UK Gambling Commission.

The site was launched to fill a specific gap in the public information landscape. Much of the material available online on the topic of non-GamStop casinos is written by affiliates who are remunerated by the operators they describe, and much of the material treats a live self-exclusion as an obstacle to be defeated.

Neither approach is honest and neither is safe. Our editorial approach is different in both respects: we take no operator commissions, we hold no interest in any gambling business, and we treat a live self-exclusion as the protective measure it was designed to be.

Our independence is structural, not aspirational. NGC Legal is not funded by any gambling operator, is not paid for referrals to any gambling operator, does not display advertising for any gambling operator and does not accept any form of consideration from any gambling operator anywhere in the world.

Our reviewer, Damian Farthing, is a solicitor regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority under the umbrella of the Law Society, and his professional obligations under the SRA Standards and Regulations preclude any arrangement that would compromise the independence of the review he performs on each page.

The domain is registered in the United Kingdom, the editorial team is based in the United Kingdom and the writing is intended for a British adult reader.

How we prepare and verify what we publish

Each page on this site is written from primary sources. Where the site cites a statute, it cites the current text of that statute as it appears at legislation.gov.uk on the date shown in the sources block. Where the site cites a regulator publication, it links to the publication on the regulator's own website.

Where the site cites a scheme's terms, it links to the terms on the scheme's own domain. We do not summarise other affiliate sites, we do not paraphrase secondary commentary and we do not rely on any material that is not itself anchored to a public primary source.

Where the position is unsettled or a matter is pending before the Administrative Court, we say so on the face of the page.

Every content page is reviewed by Damian Farthing before publication. The review checks that the citations reflect the current text of the statute or the current published position of the regulator, that dates are correct, that any statement about a criminal offence is properly qualified as to the person on whom the offence falls and that no line on the site could be read as an inducement to gamble at any operator, licensed or otherwise.

Content is re-reviewed within seven working days of any material change to the underlying position (a Commission enforcement decision, a written Ministerial statement, a Statutory Instrument or a judgment of the Administrative Court). Corrections are logged in the site's changelog with the date and the supporting source.

Editorial policy on operator names and bonuses

NGC Legal does not name any gambling operator, licensed or unlicensed, in any editorial context. This is a deliberate policy choice made at the outset of the project and it is not open to negotiation. The purpose of the site is to explain the legal framework and the position of the consumer within it.

That purpose is not advanced by naming operators, and it is capable of being frustrated by naming operators, because naming carries an implicit editorial endorsement even where the accompanying commentary is critical. Where an operator is referred to in Commission enforcement records (Spreadex Ltd, AG Communications, Corbett Bookmakers and similar) the name appears only because the record is a public record of enforcement action against a licensee.

The site does not carry welcome offers, bonus tables, comparison grids, links to registration pages or any material that a Commission compliance analyst would recognise as commercial promotion of a gambling product. We do not accept advertising from any gambling operator, from any affiliate network that promotes gambling operators, from any payment processor that specialises in gambling merchant acquiring or from any technology provider whose principal customers are gambling operators.

The site's business model is straightforward: there is no business model. NGC Legal is an editorial project, not a commercial venture, and its independence is protected by that fact.

Enquiries and requests to correct the record

Corrections and comments should be sent to the editor at [email protected]. Where a reader identifies an error, or believes a citation to be out of date, we will investigate promptly and correct the page within seven working days where the point is well-founded. Every correction is logged with the date and the supporting source, and the last-updated date at the foot of the page is refreshed when a correction is applied.

Where a reader has a specific legal question about her own situation, we cannot answer it (nothing on this site is legal advice) and we would encourage her to instruct a solicitor of her own; the Law Society Find A Solicitor register lists firms with a gambling and regulatory practice.

Formal contact for regulatory correspondence, data-protection requests under the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 and any other matter that requires a written response should also be directed to the editor address above. The reviewer, Damian Farthing, is available to respond to legal-accuracy queries through the same route.

NGC Legal does not maintain a telephone line for public enquiries. Where the query concerns a live gambling problem rather than an editorial matter, the correct first call is the National Gambling Helpline on 0808 8020 133, which is free, confidential and staffed twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year.