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  3. Licences and fees

Small businesses and sole traders

We call businesses with 3 people or less in relevant management positions small scale operators.

Qualifying management positions include:

  • overall strategy and delivery of gambling operations
  • financial planning, control and budgeting
  • marketing and commercial development
  • regulatory compliance
  • gambling-related IT provision and security
  • management of licensed activity for a particular area in Great Britain where you have five or more sets of premises for which you hold a premises licence
  • management of a single set of bingo and/or casino licensed premises.
  • nominated officer for anti-money laundering and associated purposes for a casino operator.

A small scale operator may not need to have a Personal Management Licence (PML) holder.

If you qualify as a small-scale operator, you will need to submit an operating licence application with details of anyone in these positions.

The named people in the qualifying management positions will each need to submit an Annex A along with all of the supporting documents for their application, instead of a PML application. This will make them a named person on Schedule X of your operating licence.

Society lotteries

Small scale operators running society lotteries must at all times have a named person with responsibility for promotion of the lottery. This named person needs to be:

  • a member, officer, or employee of the society (not an external lottery manager)
  • approved by the Gambling Commission
  • listed on Schedule X of the lottery operating licence.

Although having just one named person is sufficient to meet the legal requirements, we recommend having more than one named person. This will reduce the risk of having to suspend your lottery should you find yourself without a named person.

Casinos

We would not normally expect those that are applying for a non-remote or remote casino licences to be small scale operators.

If you think that you qualify for this exemption, you need to be able to demonstrate that those occupying relevant management positions can:

  • uphold the licensing objectives
  • adhere to licence conditions and codes of practice
  • manage the particular risks of casino operation effectively with the reduced numbers of relevant people.

It is our view that it would be difficult for any casino operator to satisfy our requirements with only three people in these positions. We would normally expect these businesses to have more than three people occupying these positions and that those individuals will need to have PMLs.

If you believe you can demonstrate effective management and control with just three people, you must explain this clearly with your application and provide relevant supporting evidence to demonstrate that this is the case.

Adding or removing a named person from your licence (Schedule X)

To add or remove people on your licence, you must submit a variation application using our variation application form and pay a fee. The current fees are detailed on the making changes to your operating licence page.

Any individuals being added to your licence must submit an Annex A for approval.

It takes around 8 weeks to consider and approve a person to be added to Schedule X of your operating licence.

Adding or removing someone from your operating licence (Schedule Y)

This guidance only applies to operating licensees who hold General betting (limited) and who qualify as a Small Scale Operator (SSO).

You can add an on-course representative to Schedule Y of your operating licence to allow them to accept bets on your behalf without your direct supervision. To add or remove people on your licence, you must submit a variation application using our variation application form and pay a fee.

The current fees are detailed on the making changes to your operating licence page.

Any individuals being added to your licence must submit an Annex A for approval.

When adding an on-course representative to take bets on your behalf you must supply a signed contract of employment showing the terms and conditions they are employed under with your variation application.

It takes around 8 weeks to consider and approve a person to be added to Schedule Y of your operating licence.

Last updated: 23 December 2022

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