Gaming machine consultation update – September 2026
Our Policy Senior Manager Graham Burgin provides an update on the publication of the gaming machine consultation response and explains how stakeholder feedback helped to frame our thinking and led to some significant changes to our outcomes.
Posted 30 September 2026 by Graham Burgin
Today we have published the response to our gaming machine consultation that was launched in January 2025.
Gaming machines are a significant part of the British gambling market. They are played by adults and children alike. They are made available for use in venues ranging from social clubs and seaside arcades to betting shops and casinos and generate over a fifth of the total Gross Gambling Yield reported for the gambling industry in Britain (excluding all reported lotteries). The consultation was undertaken in response to commitments made as part of the government’s 2023 Gambling Act Review White Paper (opens in new tab), which included a review of our gaming machine technical standards and consideration the role of session limits across category B and C machines and the role of other safer gambling tools on machines.
Our package of finalised outcomes delivers on our Gambling Act Review commitment and make gaming machine participation fairer and safer for consumers. From 30 June 2027, new category B gaming machines will have to provide consumers with improved access to gambling management tools and sessional information detailing how long they have been playing for and how much they have won or lost. Sessional information will also be widely available to licensees across all sectors to support them in meeting their regulatory obligations. Additionally, the new standards will result in improvements in responsible and transparent game design by ensuring awards below the stake size are not celebrated and prohibiting features that permit a customer to reduce the time until a result is known.
We received over 1,000 responses to the consultation, including the submission of supplementary data, consumer research and evidence reports. We heard, for example, concern around the direct costs associated with our proposals and potential impacts on consumer journeys. Your feedback helped to frame our thinking and where we considered there was legitimate and evidenced concern, we made changes. We consider our outcomes strike the right balance in helping those experiencing difficulties with their gambling whilst not unduly impacting on the enjoyment of those that play gaming machines safely. We have also recognised the need to give appropriate consideration to regulatory burden.
The changes to our proposals include, for example:
- removing existing gaming machines from the scope of our limit setting and display of sessional information standards – this responds directly to concerns around costs to business, and in particular to smaller licensees and the social club sector
- moving forward with a blended approach for the display of session information standard that utilises elements of our original proposal and an alternative solution offered by industry – responding directly to concerns around costs to business
- making changes to the gaming machine ‘session’ definition to ensure that breaks in play will not be inadvertently triggered prior to a game being played – which is beneficial to the consumer journey
- shifting to ‘net position’ as the monetary metric throughout our proposals – in recognition that the term is better understood by consumers
- proceeding with a graduated approach to the length of breaks in play when limits are reached – reflecting that the first and second default time limit thresholds are of lower risk
- removing the need for staff alerts when the first and second default time limit thresholds are reached – resulting in lower direct financial implementation costs and helping to better target staff time and potential customer interactions where there is greatest risk
- permitting a customer to make an active choice to hide sessional information in relation to elapsed time and net position after a minimum of 10 seconds of a break in play - this approach still supports the policy intention whilst empowering consumers to address privacy concerns as they see fit.
Stakeholder feedback also influenced our decision to move forward with a staged approach to implementation. The introduction of a gaming machine ‘session’ definition will come into force on 30 March 2027. All other decisions, bar the staff alert requirements, will come into force on 30 June 2027. These implementation timelines will support the collection of a dataset with the new ‘session’ definition before any Gaming Machine Technical Standards (GMTS) changes are implemented. Subject to resources, we can then repeat the data collection exercise after the new GMTS come into force. This approach will be beneficial in helping us evaluate the impacts of our changes.
With regards to the staff alerts, we consider an extended implementation timeline of two years (that is, coming into force on 3 October 2028) is fair and proportionate in recognition of the distinct technical delivery burden for this proposal in terms of, for example, potential protocol updates, multi-platform integration and acceptance testing. We must emphasise that the two-year timeline is a hard stop. Furthermore, we would strongly encourage licensees to continue to utilise staff alerts technology where it already exists and to introduce and adopt such technology as quickly as they are able to where it is not.
Lastly, as a call for action, we encourage all stakeholders that make gaming machines available for use, or play a role in ensuring compliance with the gaming machine technical standards and testing strategy, to start planning for implementation now.