Behavioural Tracking with AI: The Smarter, More Effective Alternative to the Gambling Commission’s Affordability Checks

he UK gambling industry is at a crossroads. With £14.2 billion in gross gambling yield in 2024, it’s an economic heavyweight—but also a prime target for clumsy, ill-thought-out regulation from a Gambling Commission (GC) that lacks both imagination and pragmatism.

The GC’s answer to problem gambling? Affordability checks—an approach so blunt, bureaucratic, and out of touch that it could push more punters towards the black market than actually help anyone. Instead of using technology and behavioral insights to tackle harm properly, the GC seems obsessed with forcing people to hand over their bank statements just to place a bet.

But there’s a better way—Behavioural Tracking with AI. Unlike nanny-state affordability caps, this approach monitors player behaviour in real-time, using machine learning to flag signs of problem gambling before it spirals out of control. It’s precise, efficient, and—crucially—it works without alienating casual bettors or driving them offshore.

The UK gambling industry finds itself in an absurd paradox. The technology to monitor gambling behaviour already exists—it’s sophisticated, it’s effective, and it’s already being used… just not for the reason you’d hope.

Instead of using AI-driven behavioural tracking to protect vulnerable players, bookmakers have been using it for years to track, restrict, and eventually ban one very specific group of gamblers—winners.

Yes, the same technology that could provide a genuinely effective safety net for problem gamblers is currently being weaponized to ensure that anyone who dares to actually beat the bookies gets shut down faster than a Conservative leadership campaign.

And yet, in a truly breathtaking display of selective blindness, the Gambling Commission has absolutely no interest in tackling this.

Could it be because they’d rather focus on shaking down operators for massive fines than actually fixing the system?
Could it be because bookmakers would rather harvest customer data than lose their most lucrative punters?

Let’s unpack the sheer comedy of this entire situation.

Bookmakers Already Track Customers… Just Not the Problem Gamblers

For years, UK bookmakers have been running highly sophisticated tracking systems—but not to stop problem gamblers. Oh no, the priority has always been keeping tabs on winners.

The moment you show any sign of knowing what you’re doing—hunting value, beating closing lines, arbing, or God forbid, actually making money—bookmakers’ tracking systems move faster than a seagull eyeing your chips at the seaside.

• Your account gets flagged.

• Your stakes get slashed to pennies.

• Eventually, you get restricted or banned outright.

The bookmakers already have AI models that can detect precise betting patterns in real time. But instead of using them to nudge problem gamblers toward support services, they’re using them to nudge anyone who isn’t a habitual loser toward the exit.

And yet, the Gambling Commission—ever the fearless defender of fairness and consumer rights—has done absolutely nothing about this.

The Gambling Commission’s Selective Blindness: A Coincidence, or Just Convenient?

So why is the GC so utterly uninterested in how bookmakers already use AI?

Well, let’s examine the incentives:

1. The GC Loves Its Multi-Million Pound Fines

If the GC actually fixed problem gambling, then how would they keep slapping operators with eye-watering fines?

• In 2023 alone, UK bookmakers were hit with over £30 million in penalties for failing to prevent gambling harm.

• The biggest names—Entain, 888, William Hill—have all been shaken down for compliance failures, with the GC parading each fine like a trophy.

If AI tracking were actually implemented properly, problem gambling rates would fall. But then the GC would be forced to find something else to regulate badly—and more importantly, they’d lose their biggest revenue stream.

2. The Bookmakers Want the Data—Not the Responsibility

The real goldmine for the bookies isn’t stopping problem gambling—it’s the data they collect along the way.

By tracking:

• How often you bet

• How much you stake

• What triggers you to chase losses

• Which games you tilt on

…they can fine-tune their marketing, promotions, and VIP targeting to milk the maximum amount of money out of each player before they become "problematic" enough to warrant an intervention.

And the best part? The Gambling Commission isn’t stopping them from doing it.

Why? Because the GC only cares about optics. They’d rather:
Slap down fines after the fact than actually fix the issue at its source.
Ban VIP schemes for optics while allowing AI-driven marketing to target the same players in more subtle ways.
Waste time pushing for intrusive affordability checks instead of using existing technology to intervene in real-time.

Bookmakers are already doing everything the GC claims to want—just in reverse, with a profit motive.

A Truly Absurd Situation

So let’s summarise the absolute state of affairs here:

1. The technology exists to track gambling behavior in real time.

2. Bookmakers are already using it—but only to shut down winners.

3. The GC has the power to demand this technology be used properly—but refuses to.

4. Instead, they enforce idiotic affordability checks that punish recreational players while driving high-stakes bettors offshore.

5. Both the GC and the bookmakers benefit from this status quo—so nothing changes.

The obvious, pragmatic solution—using AI to monitor actual problem gambling behaviour instead of arbitrary spending caps—sits right in front of them.

But instead, we get:
The GC hitting operators with massive fines every year.
Bookmakers getting to use AI for their own benefit while pretending they care about harm reduction.
Customers being driven to black-market sites where there are NO protections.

It’s corruption by incompetence, regulatory theatre at its finest.

The Path Forward: If Anyone Actually Cared

If the GC genuinely wanted to reduce gambling harm, they’d demand that bookmakers:

1. Use AI-driven behavioral tracking to identify problem gambling, not just winning strategies.

2. Implement real-time interventions that actually help players, not just restrict them.

3. Stop using AI for one-sided account closures while ignoring the harm caused by unregulated losses.

4. Stop pushing players offshore by making legal betting more restrictive than the black market.

But of course, that would require leadership, competence, and a willingness to challenge both the bookmakers and the current regulatory model.

And so, instead, we get:
A farcical loop where the GC hands out fines, bookmakers pretend to improve, and nothing actually changes.
A black market that keeps growing as more punters get fed up with ridiculous restrictions.
A regulatory body that focuses on the wrong problems because it’s easier to issue press releases than real solutions.

If gambling harm actually decreased, the GC would have nothing to grandstand about.
If fairness in betting actually mattered, bookmakers wouldn’t be allowed to restrict winning players.

So here we are—a perfect example of how to do everything wrong while claiming it’s all for the greater good.