England’s public health office has raised its first levy-funded prevention grants to £39.7 million across 40 charities and community groups. Every recipient has committed to taking no direct funding from the gambling industry.
The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) has provisionally allocated £39,702,604 to 40 voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations to prevent gambling harm in England over the 2026-27 and 2027-28 financial years. The money comes from the prevention strand of the new statutory levy on gambling operators. The award list was updated on GOV.UK on Friday 6 November 2026.
It is the clearest sign yet of where levy money is going, a little over 18 months after the statutory system replaced voluntary industry contributions in Great Britain.
Context: from voluntary donations to a statutory levy
Until April 2025, licensed operators in Great Britain met a Gambling Commission requirement to make annual contributions to research, education and treatment. The statutory gambling levy replaced that system in April 2025. The Gambling Commission collects the levy under the direction of Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) ministers.
The rate depends on the type of licence and is charged on the previous year’s gross gambling yield. According to the government’s levy page:
- online operators and software licences pay 1.1%;
- land-based casinos and betting shops pay 0.5%;
- bingo halls, adult gaming centres and on-course bookmakers pay 0.2%;
- several smaller categories pay 0.1%.
The National Lottery is exempt. The same page says the levy raised “just under £120 million” in its first year.
The proceeds are split three ways:
- 20% to UK Research and Innovation for a gambling research programme;
- 30% to prevention, led in England by OHID and in Scotland and Wales by their governments;
- 50% to treatment, led by NHS England and the Scottish and Welsh governments.
The grants announced this week come from the 30% prevention share.
What was announced
OHID’s publication lists the 40 organisations and their provisional allocations covering both years.
The largest award is £4.04 million to GamCare. The others above £2.5 million are:
- Chapter One, £3.06 million;
- YGAM, £3.0 million;
- Betknowmore, £2.99 million;
- Waythrough, £2.77 million;
- Gamban, £2.71 million.
Other large awards include:
- Gambling with Lives, £1.88 million;
- GamLEARN, £1.83 million;
- Beacon Counselling, £1.64 million;
- BetBlocker, £1.12 million.
The smallest award is £25,900, to Headway Southampton and West Wessex.
The list also includes local Citizens Advice services in Wokingham, Solent East, Scunthorpe, Wolverhampton and North Nottinghamshire, and the Royal College of General Practitioners. Several community groups serving women, older people and young people are funded too, including Lancashire Women, Shama Women’s Centre, Leeds Older People’s Forum, Age UK Lambeth and the Greater Manchester Youth Network. The Prison Radio Association receives £75,419.
The fund has three stated objectives:
- to sustain and strengthen the VCSE sector so it can deliver “equitable and innovative prevention strategies”;
- to build capacity for sustainable project delivery;
- to develop “an independent, evidence-based approach to public health policy decision making”.
The independence condition
The most notable part of the round is a condition attached to it. OHID says every applicant had to complete a declaration of interest and commit to taking no direct funding from the gambling industry after 1 April 2026. Funding from the National Lottery and social lotteries is excepted.
Applicants were also asked to review “any materials and approaches adopted while in receipt of industry or GambleAware funding”. In practice, organisations that previously ran education or support programmes with industry money are expected to look again at that content before using levy money.
OHID says applications were open from 14 January to 6 February 2026. They were assessed against published eligibility and scoring criteria and followed by due diligence checks.
A bigger pot than first announced
The total is larger than OHID’s earlier figure. According to iGaming Business, OHID said in April that provisional allocations would total £25.4 million across 33 organisations. The updated list adds seven organisations and about £14 million. OHID’s page does not explain the increase.
OHID also stresses that the list is provisional. “This provisional list does not guarantee that these organisations will be funded,” it says. Funding depends on grant agreements being finalised, and both the organisations and the amounts may change.
Who is affected
For the charities on the list, the grants provide two years of planned income for prevention work at a time when many have had to give up industry money. For organisations not on the list that previously relied on GambleAware or operator funding, the round is a signal that the main source of prevention funding in England is now the state.
Prevention money is not the only levy funding. OHID is separately distributing £12 million to upper-tier local councils in 2026-27, also from the prevention strand. NHS England runs its own VCSE grant for treatment services, from the larger 50% treatment share. The government says prevention commissioning in England is meant to be “fully independent of the influence of the gambling industry”. Operators’ part is to pay the levy by 1 October each year, at rates that depend on their licence type. For online operators, the levy sits alongside Remote Gaming Duty, which rose from 21% to 40% in April 2026, as Bally’s Intralot’s latest results showed.
For people in England who are worried about their own or someone else’s gambling, the grants should mean more locally available support, education and advice services over the next two years. Free, confidential help is already available through the National Gambling Helpline on 0808 8020 133 in England and Scotland, or 0808 2819 265 in Wales.
What happens next
OHID says what it learns from this round “will help shape future approaches” and that it anticipates further funding for 2027-28. If organisations or amounts change, a change note will be added to the publication page. DCMS is also required to publish an annual report on levy finances and progress.
The grants are part of a wider set of changes in Britain’s regulated market. Those changes include tighter rules on financial limits and promotions, covered in our updated guide to the UK’s 2025-26 gambling reforms, and a new enforcement drive against unlicensed operators, which we reported in our story on the Gambling Commission’s “follow the money” approach.
Gambling in Great Britain is for adults aged 18 and over.
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