Primary Authority and underage gambling
The authority can provide advice to that business, or to other local authorities. This advice is often referred to as ‘assured advice’ because, with the back-up of the statutory scheme, local regulators are expected to accept that if the business is following that advice it is meeting its regulatory responsibilities. Businesses might seek this advice if they want reassurance that they will not face local inconsistency.
Since 2013 Primary Authority (opens in new tab) has included prevention of underage gambling and age verification. Some gambling businesses have Primary Authority agreements where they receive assured advice. Others have gone a step further and agreed a ‘national inspection strategy’ that sets out arrangements for a minimum number of underage test purchase exercises to be done in the premises of that business during the lifetime of the agreement.
We have worked with the Primary Authorities that cover gambling and provided informal guidance and advice on the content and consistency of their national inspection strategies. This is because those strategies can provide helpful support to the testing programmes required of businesses under the Licence conditions and codes of practice. We have not reviewed or approved any of the assured advice produced to date.
We do not ‘endorse’ an operator’s approach to compliance. For this reason, under the Primary Authority scheme we do not provide ‘assured advice’. It is the operator’s responsibility to manage their business in line with legal and regulatory requirements.
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Last updated: 1 February 2021
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