IBAS complaints: what it covers and how to prepare
IBAS is the Independent Betting Adjudication Service. It considers certain gambling disputes, free to consumers. First check that the company uses IBAS and that it covers your dispute. This website is not IBAS and cannot submit a case for you.
Follow the steps below. Keep your records privately; do not send them to this site.
Check the provider and the problem
Look at the company's complaints procedure and final response for its named independent dispute service. Alternative dispute resolution, or ADR, is a way of referring an eligible unresolved dispute to an independent body. IBAS is one provider, not the route for every company.
IBAS considers disputes within its rules, including certain disagreements about gambling transactions. It generally excludes gambling-harm complaints unless there is also a contractual dispute, and excludes complaints about the effectiveness of self-exclusion systems. Losing money is not, by itself, a qualifying payment dispute.
Complain to the company first
For an eligible GB dispute, referral may be available after the operator's complaints process has lasted eight weeks, allowing relevant pauses, or when it reaches an earlier deadlock or final position. Keep the complaint acknowledgement and final response.
Do not simply count 56 days. UKGC guidance allows for a pause where a customer does not engage in time: for example, not answering a reasonable information request within seven days. When the customer responds, the clock resumes from where it stopped. Keep both the request and reply dates and ask about any claimed pause.
Follow the named provider's current instructions. An unresolved complaint is not a finding that the company owes you money.
Prepare a short, organised account
Keep originals privately. Choose the records that explain this dispute, rather than sending an entire unrelated file.
- The company's legal name, account reference and the relevant gambling activity.
- What happened, in date order, including anything that does not support your account.
- The specific transaction or balance in dispute, without counting the same money twice.
- The complaint, replies, final decision and any referral reference supplied.
- Relevant terms, bet references, withdrawal records and messages.
- What you asked the company to do and why its response did not resolve the issue.
Check which rules and service apply
England, Wales and Scotland: the Gambling Commission regulates gambling in Great Britain. Check the operator's legal name, licence and the dispute service named in its complaints procedure.
Northern Ireland has a separate gambling framework. Do not assume a GB procedure applies simply because you recognise the brand. Check the entity you dealt with, where you were gambling and the relevant dates.
Republic of Ireland: GRAI's complaints remit is being introduced in stages. Check its current page against the activity, licence and dates involved. GRAI is not a consumer dispute-resolution service.
If the operator or licence is unclear, establish those details before choosing a route. Do not assume an offshore business participates in a UK dispute scheme.
Use the official instructions when ready
If IBAS is the appropriate provider, follow its own instructions below. You will leave this website. Check what it needs before sharing personal information; nothing is sent to IBAS by this site.
Sources checked . General information, not legal advice. The rules that apply depend on where and when this happened.