Gambling Commission Confirms New Category B Gaming Machine Regulations

The Gambling Commission has introduced new regulations for Category B gaming machines, in an attempt to minimise harmful gambling following a consultation on the matter.

The British regulator laid out three particular changes. First, new Category B gaming machines will have to provide consumers with improved access to gambling management tools and session information detailing how long they have been playing for and how much they have won or lost.

Second, licensees will have access to sessional information to help them meet regulatory requirements, such as making interactions with players who are displaying signs of gambling harm. Third, responsible game design will be improved by ensuring awards below the stake size are not celebrated, and features that permit a customer to reduce the time until a result is known will be prohibited.

Category B breakdown

There are different variations of Category B machines. Category B1 machines cover games with a maximum stake of £2 and a maximum prize of £4,000, while Category B2 machines cover machines with a maximum stake of £100 and a maximum prize of £500. Meanwhile, Category B3 machines have a maximum stake of £2 and a maximum prize of £500, and the split for Category B4 machines is £1 and £500.

The announced changes will not apply to existing machines. The consultation that has led to these changes focused on implementing proposals from the 2023 Gambling White Paper, which outlined more than 60 proposals to update the country’s gambling laws. There will be a staged implementation, with the majority of the changes coming into effect in June 2027.

Helen Rhodes, the Commission’s Director of Major Policy Projects and Evaluation, said:

“These measures will help both to empower consumers to understand and manage their gambling and ensure operators play their part. Consultation feedback from a range of stakeholders helped to inform our thinking and where there was legitimate and evidenced concern, we made changes.”

Potential tax increase

The announcement comes at a time where there is plenty of focus on Category B machines, as a potential significant increase of tax paid on the machines could be announced later this month.

Reports have suggested UK Chancellor John Healey is considering raising machine games duty (MGD) to 40% of net takings, which would be double the current rate of 20% of revenue generated on gaming machines in both casinos and bingo halls.

This would fall in line with a recommendation made by cross-party think tank the Social Markets Foundation (SMF). In June, the SMF reasoned the rate should go up to 40% as the government needs to raise revenue, and that more harmful types of gambling should lead to higher rates of tax.

The SMF’s basis for this is that, according to the Gambling Survey for Great Britain covering 2023, one in four (27%) casino game users on machines gambles at risky or harmful levels - the highest of any major category. The potential new tax rate could be announced by Healey in the Autumn Budget on Wednesday, 28 October.

“No economic sense”

Last month, Rank Group CEO Richard Harris told investors an increase in MGD would “make no economic sense” and would be “nonsensical”, warning that raising the rate to 40% will cause job losses at the Grosvenor Casinos and Mecca Bingo owner. Harris said:

“Unfortunately, any increase in MGD would lead to fewer venues across the sectors, lower employment, and reduced tax receipts within 12 months.”