The UK Gambling Commission has confirmed new standards for gaming machines in Great Britain, introducing measures intended to improve access to gambling management tools, session information and safer game design.
The changes come as political and industry debate intensifies over machine games duty (MGD), including a proposal to raise the tax on category B machines from 20% to 40%.
New requirements for machines
The UK Gambling Commission’s response follows a consultation on gaming machine technical standards, testing strategy and licence conditions and codes of practice. The consultation was launched in January 2025 to implement proposals from the 2023 Gambling Act Review white paper, High Stakes: gambling reform for the digital age.
More than 1,000 responses were submitted, alongside supplementary data, consumer research and evidence reports. Respondents raised concerns about implementation costs and possible effects on customer journeys.
New category B machines will have to provide better access to gambling management tools and session information showing how long a customer has played and how much they have won or lost. Licensees will also be able to use session data when meeting regulatory duties, including intervening with customers showing signs of gambling harm.
The standards will also prevent awards below the stake from being celebrated and prohibit features that allow customers to shorten the time before a result is revealed.
Existing machines will not need to meet the new requirements. The UK Gambling Commission said the technical work required would create costs, particularly for smaller licensees and the social club sector, without necessarily producing proportionate benefits for consumers. Measures have also been adjusted to limit alert fatigue among consumers and staff and to protect privacy.
Helen Rhodes, Director of Major Policy Projects and Evaluation at the UK Gambling Commission, said the measures would help consumers understand and manage their gambling while ensuring operators fulfil their responsibilities. She added that consultation feedback had led to changes where concerns were “legitimate and evidenced” and that the final package balanced consumer benefits against implementation costs.
A separate licence condition intended to deal more effectively with non-compliant machines came into force on 29 July 2026.
Staged implementation
The wider changes will be introduced in three stages, with most taking effect in June next year. Graham Burgin, Policy Senior Manager at the UK Gambling Commission, said the timetable would allow the collection of a new session dataset before the technical standards change. The exercise could be repeated after implementation, subject to resources, to assess the impact.
Staff alerts have a two-year implementation period. Burgin described this as fair and proportionate given the technical burden, including possible protocol updates, multi-platform integration and acceptance testing, but said the deadline was a “hard stop”. Licensees are expected to use existing staff-alert technology and adopt it as soon as possible where it is not already available.
MGD debate continues
The standards arrive as speculation grows over the tax treatment of land-based gambling. The sector avoided tax increases last year, while remote gaming duty on online operators rose in April.
Social Market Foundation has proposed doubling MGD on category B machines to 40%. Rank Group Chief Executive Officer Richard Harris told the Press Association that such a move could close a significant number of land-based businesses and affect about 30% of Rank Group’s UK workforce, or approximately 2,000 employees. Entain has also opposed an increase, with CEO Stella David writing an open letter to Prime Minister Andy Burnham about the potential effect on its betting shops.
