Skill with prize machines: Quest Gaming Ltd – Skill Stop Roulette

Press release

Date: 4 November 2010

The Gambling Commission (the Commission) monitors the boundary between gaming machines and skills with prizes machines (SWPs). In September, the Commission warned clubs, pubs and arcades that suppliers may offer them machines as SWPs which are in fact gaming machines. Both the Commission and HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) published advice confirming that machines presented as offering games of chance such as roulette, bingo or poker are gaming machines, not SWPs. 

The Commission has made the following additional statement to address any potential confusion caused by recent publications by Quest Gaming Ltd regarding a machine called Skill Stop Roulette. The publications include an advertisement placed in the Morning Advertiser on 28 October 2010.

“Quest Gaming Ltd has misrepresented the Gambling Commission’s position with regard to Skill Stop Roulette. The Commission has made it clear to Quest Gaming Ltd that it suspects Skill Stop Roulette machines to be gaming machines on the basis of their presentation alone. This is irrespective of whether the Commission’s ongoing criminal investigation establishes the machines are also defined as games of chance by their operational nature.

In addition to the previous general warning, the Commission warns anyone making Skill Stop Roulette machines available for use without the appropriate licences or permissions that they may be liable for prosecution.”

Further information about skills with prize machines is available on our website.

 

Ends

Notes to editors

The Gambling Commission

  1. 1. The Gambling Commission (the Commission) regulates gambling in the public interest alongside its co-regulators local licensing authorities. It does so by keeping crime out of gambling, by ensuring that gambling is conducted fairly and openly, and by protecting children and vulnerable people from being harmed or exploited by gambling. The Commission also provides independent advice to government on gambling in Britain.
  2. 2. The Commission and local licensing authorities are responsible for licensing and regulating all gambling in Great Britain other than the National Lottery and spread betting, which are the responsibility of the National Lottery Commission and the Financial Services Authority (FSA) respectively.
  3. 3. See the Terms & Conditions section of our website for information on legal advice.  
  4. 4. The previous general warning was publicised in our press release Warning over machines presented as games of chance on 28 September 2010. 

Further information

  1. You can call John Travers on (0121) 230 6700, (07852) 124624 or email him via communications@gamblingcommission.gov.uk.