The Gambling Commission has published the outcome of its gaming machine consultation, and existing machines have been taken out of the standards on limit setting and the display of session information
The Gambling Commission, or UKGC, which regulates gambling in England, Scotland and Wales, announced on 30 September that from 30 June 2027 new category B gaming machines will have to provide players with improved access to gambling management tools and session information.
Session information shows how long a player has been playing and how much they have won or lost. It will be widely available to licensees in all sectors so that they can meet regulatory obligations, including interacting with players who show signs of gambling harm. In addition, the standards improve responsible and transparent game design: awards below the stake size must not be celebrated, and features that allow a customer to reduce the time until a result is known are prohibited.
The decision follows a consultation launched in January 2025 to implement proposals from the government's 2023 Gambling Act Review White Paper. The Commission received more than 1,000 responses, including supplementary data and research, and changed some of its original proposals. According to the regulator, gaming machines generate more than a fifth of the gross gambling yield reported for the British gambling industry, excluding lotteries.
The Commission has taken existing gaming machines out of the scope of the standards on limit setting and the display of session information. In its press release the regulator explained this by citing complex technical changes and costs to business that would not necessarily deliver proportionate benefits to players, while in a blog post it clarified that the concerns were mainly about the costs to smaller licensees and the social club sector. In addition, the regulator said, steps have been taken to reduce the risk of “alert fatigue” among players and staff and to protect players' privacy.
For the display of session information the Commission chose a blended approach that uses elements of its original proposal and an alternative solution offered by industry. The monetary metric in all proposals will be “net position”: in the Commission's assessment, players understand this term better. Players will be able to choose to hide the data on elapsed time and net position after a break in play of at least 10 seconds.
The Commission changed the definition of a session so that breaks in play are not triggered inadvertently before a game is played. A graduated approach has been adopted for the length of breaks when limits are reached. The requirement for staff alerts when the first and second default time limit thresholds are reached has been removed, which lowers the direct financial costs of implementation.
Implementation will be staged: the session definition takes effect on 30 March 2027 and the other decisions, apart from the staff alert requirements, on 30 June 2027. According to the Commission, this timetable will allow it to collect data on the new session definition before any changes to the gaming machine technical standards (GMTS) are implemented. Subject to resources, the Commission will be able to repeat the data collection once the new standards come into force, which will help evaluate the impact of the changes.
Helen Rhodes, the Commission's Director of Major Policy Projects and Evaluation, said the measures will help “empower consumers to understand and manage their gambling” and get operators to fulfil their role. She said feedback from a range of stakeholders helped shape the Commission's position and that where concerns were legitimate and backed by evidence, the Commission made changes. Rhodes said she was confident the consultation had produced a package of changes in which the benefits to consumers are proportionate to the costs of implementation, and that the staged timetable is reasonable and achievable.
The staff alert requirements will take effect later, on 3 October 2028: the Commission called the two-year period fair and proportionate given the technical complexity, for example potential protocol updates, multi-platform integration and acceptance testing.
The Commission stressed that this deadline is firm and strongly urged licensees to keep using staff alert technology where it already exists and to introduce it where it does not, as soon as they are able. It called on everyone who makes gaming machines available for use or plays a role in ensuring compliance with the technical standards and testing strategy to start planning for implementation now.
