Preventing underage gambling
You must have policies in place that prevent underage gambling.
To protect children these should include, for example:
- checking the age of customers who appear to be, or are suspected of being, underage
- not deliberately providing facilities for gambling in such a way as to appeal particularly to children and young people, for example by reflecting or being associated with youth culture
- in premises restricted to adults, refusing service in circumstances where an adult is accompanied by a baby, child or young person.
The following code is relevant to this section:
The Licence conditions and codes of practice (LCCP) contains sector-specific requirements as regards preventing underage gambling.
Test purchasing to prevent underage gambling
We support and work closely with your local licensing authority on a rolling programme of test purchasing activity to test the robustness of your age verification policies and procedures.
Gambling businesses that have failed in these test purchase exercises have had some or all of these premises conditions imposed upon them:
- Think 21 or Think 25 policy
- regular test purchasing to be undertaken, to ensure the licensee monitors the effectiveness of their controls
- use of magnetic locks to restrict access to premises
- use of an infra-red beam system to alert staff to the presence of customers in age-restricted areas
- barriers to reduce the risk of children crossing from family entertainment centre premises into adult gaming centre premises
- re-positioning category D gaming machines away from entrances to adult gaming centre premises, to reduce the attraction of children to those areas
- induction and refresher training for staff.
Last updated: 11 June 2021
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