Sticky and non-sticky: what happens to the money when you withdraw

Checked against the Gambling Commission's own guidance on 20 September 2026. Where a rule has a date, the date is given.

"Sticky" and "non-sticky" are affiliate words. No operator prints them in its terms, and no regulator uses them. What sits underneath is a division the Commission does define, in detail, and mostly in your favour — so the useful version of this question is not which type a bonus is, but which of your two balances a given pound is sitting in when you press withdraw.

Your account holds two balances, and that is a requirement

British operators do not get to blend your money with a bonus and show you one number. The guidance is explicit that "the deposit balance and (if applicable) the bonus balance are always clearly displayed separately to the consumer".

That separation is the whole mechanism. Everything else here follows from which side of the line a pound is on.

• Deposit balance is your own money, plus anything the terms treat as yours.
• Bonus balance is the restricted side: the bonus itself while it is not yet withdrawable, and the winnings made with it while a wagering requirement is outstanding.

A bonus described as non-sticky is one where funds cross from the second column into the first once the condition is met. A sticky one is where the bonus itself never crosses, though winnings above it may. The columns are the same in both cases.

What the Commission counts as a wagering requirement

The definition is broader than most people assume and it is worth reading closely: "Any requirement that a consumer must make wagers totalling a particular value for funds to become withdrawable."

Note what it does not turn on. Not whether the requirement is expressed as a multiple or a flat amount, not whether the operator calls it wagering, playthrough or turnover, and not whether it applies to the bonus or to the total. If money is locked until you have bet a certain amount, that is a wagering requirement.

There is one carve-out, and it is a useful test of an offer's honesty: a requirement that bonus funds be wagered once is not counted, but only where the terms let you withdraw any winnings from that single wager immediately. An offer that asks for one play-through and then still holds the winnings has not found a loophole. It has a wagering requirement.

The mixed-wager rule almost nobody explains

Here is the part that catches people out, and it is the reason "how much of this is really mine" is harder to answer than it looks.

When a stake draws on both balances at once, the resulting winnings are split. The bonus balance takes the proportionate share of the winnings attributable to the bonus stake — so a spin funded 30% from bonus funds sends 30% of anything it returns into the restricted column, not into your cash.

This is why a balance can climb for an hour and the withdrawable figure barely move. Nothing has gone wrong and nobody has cheated you. Each mixed stake has been quietly feeding both columns in proportion, and the column that matters at the cashier is the one filling slowest.

It also explains a complaint operators receive constantly: that a withdrawal "took" money the player thought they had won. The figure on the screen was real. It was simply not all in the deposit balance.

What you can withdraw whatever the bonus says

Three sentences in the Commission's guidance do more for a British player than any bonus comparison table, and most people have never seen them.

Your own money stays yours. "Players must be allowed to withdraw without restriction, except as necessary to comply with any General Regulatory Obligations." A live bonus does not suspend that. You are entitled to be told you can withdraw your deposit balance at any time, including while a bonus is pending or active, and that right has to be stated when you sign up to the promotion and on your account page.

Wagering cannot be attached to your own money. "Promotional Play Restrictions and Wagering Requirements (if applicable) do not apply to any play by a consumer with their Deposit Balance." If you deposit £50, take a bonus, and win with the £50 before touching the bonus, those winnings are withdrawable however little you have played.

The practical consequence is that the "non-sticky" structure people prize — play your own cash first, keep the bonus in reserve, withdraw whenever you like — is not a clever offer design that some operators generously provide. In Great Britain it is roughly what the rules require of everybody. What an offer can still change is what happens to the unused bonus when you do withdraw, and that part belongs in the terms.

The rules read this way because of a specific investigation

None of the above was always true, and it is worth knowing why it changed, because the pattern it outlawed is exactly what "sticky" used to mean in practice.

The Competition and Markets Authority found operators running promotions where a player could not withdraw winnings made from their own deposit until wagering was met, whether or not they had touched the bonus at all. The CMA's own worked example: deposit £20, receive a "free" £20, and face at least £800 of wagering before withdrawing anything.

Undertakings followed through 2018 — William Hill, Ladbrokes and PT Entertainment on 1 February, bgo on 23 March, then Jumpman Gaming and Progress Play on 29 August, the last of those with compliance due two days later and no grace period extended to anyone else. The Commission's position was that these were standards for the whole market rather than penalties on a few firms. The joint CMA and Commission programme closed on 29 April 2019.

So when the guidance says wagering cannot touch your deposit balance, that sentence has a history. It was written to stop a specific practice that had been ordinary.

What changed on 19 January 2026

Two things, and the second is the one that has had almost no coverage.

The wagering cap is the known one: a British licensee may not attach a requirement above 10× to an incentive.

The less-discussed change sits in the same code provision. Licensees "must not include more than one type of gambling product (betting, casino, bingo and lottery) within an incentive." Offers that required you to place a bet and then play slots to unlock the same reward are no longer permitted. The ban does not bite where an incentive simply lets you choose, on an unrestricted basis, which products to spend credits on — the objection is to being made to cross product types, not to being allowed to.

If you meet an offer that still works that way, it is either outside Great Britain or out of date.

What has to be on the offer before you accept it

The Commission requires the key restrictions to be put in front of you rather than buried, and it lists what counts as key. Significant conditions are the restrictions that decide whether the offer works for you at all: who is excluded from it, any time limit, what you have to do to qualify, the maximum stake permitted while it runs, and the wagering requirement.

Two details in that list are worth pulling out because they void offers quietly.

A maximum stake while a bonus is active is a condition most people never look for, and breaching it can cost the bonus and everything won with it. The limit is usually a few pounds a spin, and it is easy to exceed by accident on a game with a large default bet.

Who is excluded covers more than you would expect: previous customers, particular payment methods, certain countries, and sometimes accounts that took a different promotion first.

An operator is not expected to list every restricted game inside the offer itself, but it does have to tell you that some games do not qualify, or that contributions vary between them, and link to the detail. An offer that says nothing about game contribution is not a simple offer. It is an incomplete one.

You are also entitled to know, while you play, when you are using restricted funds, and what happens if you break a promotional condition. If the interface never distinguishes the two balances, that is a fault rather than a design choice.

The check worth doing before you claim

Four questions, in the order that decides how much you keep.

1. 01Does the bonus itself become withdrawable, or only winnings above it? This is the sticky question, and the terms will answer it without using the word.
2. 02What is the wagering requirement calculated on? Bonus alone, or deposit plus bonus. Our guide to wagering requirements works through why that single word changes the cost several times over.
3. 03Which balance does a stake draw from first? If mixed stakes are possible, expect the proportionate split above.
4. 04What happens to an unused bonus if you withdraw early? Usually it is forfeited, which is a fair trade and not a penalty, but you should know it before rather than after.

If the terms do not answer all four, that is itself an answer about the offer.

What to take away

A bonus is a cost structure, not a gift, and the two-column model is what makes the cost visible. Watch which column a pound lands in and you can see the shape of any offer in about a minute, whatever the marketing calls it.

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If gambling has stopped being entertainment, GamCare runs the National Gambling Helpline on 0808 8020 133, free, 24 hours a day, with live chat at gamcare.org.uk. 18+.

Sources. Gambling Commission: restrictions on withdrawing deposit and deposit winnings, fair and transparent terms and practices, glossary of terms, LCCP Social Responsibility Code 5.1.1, gambling promotions to be safer and simpler. Competition and Markets Authority: online gambling case page, further information for online gambling companies.