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Do credit checks look at gambling?

Gambling isn't visible in your credit report and won't directly impact your credit score. However, mortgage lenders consider more than your credit report while assessing your creditworthiness, so (if you have to gamble at all) it's worth only gambling with cash in the months leading up to a mortgage application.

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Since 14 April 2020, you’re no longer able to use a credit card to gamble in the UK. However, gambling can still affect your ability to borrow money and can have an indirect impact on your credit score.

Will gambling be visible on my credit file?

It’s highly unlikely. Your credit report doesn’t contain information on what you bought and where you bought it. You can see what lenders see by getting to know your own credit report. The act of gambling in itself isn’t enough to affect your credit report or credit score. After all, your credit report is an assessment of your ability to comfortably pay back a loan. It doesn’t exist to record or make judgements about how you spend the money you have. However, while gambling transactions won’t be visible in your credit report, they’ll be visible in your bank statements, which mortgage lenders do like to go through when weighing up an application. Similarly, a number of credit card or loan issuers will now request to see your current account transactions using open banking when considering an application you’ve made. Once again, prospective lenders may be absolutely fine with seeing the odd flutter in your transaction history, but they are likely to be put off if you’re making frequent or disproportionately large transfers to betting sites. It’s not unusual to use an account separate from your main current account to fund gambling payments, but this doesn’t guarantee discretion.

Credit cards and gambling

Historical credit card payments to casinos or betting sites won’t be identifiable as such in your credit report, and because it has become illegal for gambling businesses to take credit card payments for bets, it’s now much harder to fund gambling in that way anyway. Despite the ban, it remains possible for a credit card to be indirectly used to fund gambling. With a money transfer credit card, for example, you could send money from your credit card to your current account and then transfer from there to an account held with a betting site. Alternatively, you might fund day-to-day purchases like groceries and transport with a credit card, freeing-up ready cash for gambling. Neither of these would be visible in your credit file. If you withdraw cash from your credit card, nobody will know the purpose of that withdrawal, but it’ll be recorded as a “cash advance” in your credit report and is likely to hurt your credit score (you’ll also usually pay a fee plus a higher rate of interest on cash advances). Using credit to fund gambling is a really bad idea, however. If things don’t go your way, you’ll find yourself in negative equity – where whatever you funded with credit has reduced in value (all the way to £0 in the case of a bad bet), but you still owe the full amount back – potentially with interest too. The simple act of applying for a credit card has a small and usually short-lived negative impact on your credit score, so you don’t want to be doing this more often than you need to.

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If you have a credit card and use it to make payments at a casino that aren’t for gambling – e.g. buying drinks – then that would typically be considered to be a “cash advance” by your card issuer. A cash advance is usually defined as using a credit card to withdraw cash, but it can also refer to “cash-like” transactions such as buying travel money, transferring money to a crypto exchange or making purchases at a casino. Banks categorise transactions according to the “merchant category code” (MCC). Cash advances are recorded in your credit file and can actually hurt your credit score. They don’t look good to prospective lenders, which may see a credit card cash advance as indicating financial difficulties or bad financial judgement.

Will gambling affect my chances of getting a personal loan?

Although gambling doesn’t directly affect your credit report or get recorded in it, some would-be lenders will want to look at your bank account transaction history by requesting an open banking connection to your current account. These lenders may not offer a loan unless you authorise this. If they see frequent or large payments to betting sites or casinos, that could put them off. There are also many side-effects of irresponsible gambling that definitely can affect your chances of getting approved for a loan. If gambling causes you to fall into your overdraft, this could affect your chances of being approved, particularly if it’s an unauthorised overdraft. Lenders will also consider how much credit you already have access to and how much of that you’re using, before approving your new loan. The reality is that many compulsive gamblers would open multiple credit card accounts to fund their habit indirectly, and this affects their ability to access further credit. The problem worsens if you’re unable to pay off your balance before the end of the month. At this point, the debt cycle becomes hard to break and your credit score becomes worse and worse, especially if the gambling habit continues. However, if you gamble responsibly using your own money and otherwise have a decent credit score, there is no reason why gambling should affect your chances of getting a personal loan.

Check eligibility without impacting your credit score

Will gambling affect my chances of getting a mortgage?

Mortgage lenders screen an applicant’s spending habits with far more detail than any other type of lender. When applying for a mortgage, it is common for the lender to request between 3 and 6 months of bank statements and assess your creditworthiness based on your payments. The lender will also conduct an interview about your spending habits. If a lender sees outgoing payments to gambling companies, this could put off lenders from approving you as an individual responsible enough to make mortgage repayments. If you are found to have borrowed money to finance gambling payments, that is likely to be seen as an even bigger red flag.

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This communicates that you’re an individual who prioritises gambling over responsibly paying back your debts and that you’re likely to gamble a lender’s money away in the future. Even if you’re found to have regularly transferred winnings back into your account, this might not be enough to sway their decision.

Gambling and your mortgage application

Tips

Do Gamble responsibly.

Gamble using cash where possible.

Seek professional help if you suffer from gambling addiction. Don’t Borrow money to gamble.

Apply for credit jointly with an irresponsible gambler

Apply for a mortgage until your bank statements show responsible spending.

Example: John's loan application and his credit score John used to really enjoy online poker. Although he didn’t consider himself an addict, he had used one of his 2 credit cards to support this habit within the last 3 months. He pays interest on outstanding debt from both of these cards. Before he and his girlfriend made a joint mortgage application, they decided it would be beneficial to clear up John’s debts. Together, they helped clear John’s credit card debts and closed both accounts. In the months leading up to their mortgage application, John stopped gambling online, so there was no proof of it on his most recent bank statements. The couple believed that this would improve their chances of being approved for a good mortgage deal – and it did. * This is a fictional, but realistic, example.

The bottom line

Gambling isn’t visible in your credit report and won’t directly impact your credit score. However, mortgage lenders consider more than your credit report while assessing your creditworthiness, so (if you have to gamble at all) it’s worth only gambling with cash in the months leading up to a mortgage application. You could alternatively use a separate account to fund your gambling, but this may be spotted by the bank weighing up your mortgage application. A rising number of credit card and loan providers now use open banking to algorithmically analyse your day-to-day banking transactions. This too could catch gambling transactions. But gamble responsibly from time to time with small amounts, and it’s likely that the lenders wouldn’t mind even if they did spot it. Build your credit history while you save with LOQBOX Save from £20 to £200 a month