Great Britain introduces new safer gaming machine rules
The Gambling Commission will require new gaming machines in Great Britain to show players how long they have been playing and whether they are winning or losing during a session, under standards due to be introduced from 2027.
The rules will apply to newly supplied machines and are intended to make land-based gambling easier to monitor for customers and staff. They will also ban certain game-design practices, including celebrating returns that are smaller than the original stake and features that let players speed up the time before a result is revealed.
Director of Major Policy Projects and Evaluation at the Gambling Commission Helen Rhodes is confident the latest changes would help customers manage their gambling sessions and keep venues in check.
“These measures will help both to empower consumers to understand and manage their gambling and ensure operators play their part,” she said.
“Consultation feedback from a range of stakeholders helped to inform our thinking and where there was legitimate and evidenced concern, we made changes.
“We are confident that the consultation has led to a package of changes where the benefits to consumers are proportionate to the costs of implementation and that the staged timeline for implementation is reasonable and achievable.”
Most of the requirements will take effect on June 30, 2027. A new legal definition of a gambling session will begin on March 30 2027, while rules relating to staff alerts will follow on October 3, 2028.
For players, the central change is that new machines will need to offer gambling-management tools and display sessional net position and elapsed playing time. This means a customer using an affected machine should be able to see more clearly how long they have been gambling and the overall amount won or lost in that period, rather than relying only on individual game outcomes.
Gambling venues will also have access to session information to help them meet duties to identify and interact with customers showing possible signs of gambling harm. The Commission said it adjusted the original proposals after consultation, including measures intended to limit unnecessary alerts for staff and reduce privacy concerns.
The announcement refers to Category B machines, a group that includes B1 casino machines, B2 fixed-odds betting terminals, and B3 machines found in settings such as betting shops, bingo premises and adult gaming centres. The wider adopted standards for limit-setting and on-screen session information also cover new Category A, B3A and B4 machines.
Existing machines will generally not have to be upgraded. The Commission said the technical work and expense involved would not necessarily produce consumer benefits proportionate to the cost. However, an existing game compendium made available with a new game will need to meet the updated requirements.
The measures follow the government’s 2023 Gambling Act Review White Paper, which called for an update to rules developed before the growth of digital gambling and included a review of land-based machine standards. Gaming machines account for more than one-fifth of British gambling gross gambling yield, excluding reported lotteries, according to the Commission.
They also extend beyond the earlier policy focus on FOBTs. The maximum stake on B2 machines was cut from £100 to £2 in April 2019, but the new standards take in the broader Category B group. Current maximum stakes and prizes for B2 and B3 machines are £2 and £500 respectively.
The Gambling Act 2005 is the main legal framework for gambling in Great Britain, where the Commission licenses operators and oversees compliance. The changes do not cover Northern Ireland, where gambling policy is largely devolved.
