Reforms for Land-Based Casinos
The Department of Culture Media and Sport (“DCMS”) has laid a number of Orders (“Orders”) to implement the long-awaited reforms for land-based casinos, which will increase the gaming machine entitlement for converted casino premises licences (casino licences granted under the repealed Gaming Act 1968) in the case of those casinos that meet minimum size requirements.
Betting will also be permitted in all converted casino licensed premises.
The changes require revisions to two pieces of secondary legislation that were passed at the time of the implementation of the Gambling Act 2005, which took effect on 1st September 2007.
These are:
- The Gambling Act 2005 (Commencement No. 6 and Transitional Provisions) Order 2006 (“2006 Transitional Provisions Order”), which set out the restricted entitlements for converted casino premises licences;
- The Gambling Act 2005 (Premises Licences and Provisional Statements) Regulations 2007, which prescribe the process for making variation applications and set the plan requirements for the scaled plans that must accompany such applications.
The draft Amendment Order has been laid by the DCMS, along with the draft amended Premises Licence Regulations, and are referenced in this announcement.
The government make clear that these Orders may change, hence them being laid in draft, and it also makes clear that the Transitional Provisions Amendment Order will only be implemented once the main provisions in The Casinos (Gaming Machines and Mandatory Conditions) Regulations 2025 (“Casino Regulations”) have been approved by both Houses of Parliament.
This will then allow all the revised provisions to be incorporated into the original 2006 Transitional Provisions Order.
The Casino Regulations are also in draft and introduce the new “entitlements”:
- extended converted casino premises” means premises in which gaming machines are made available for use in accordance with the extended gaming machine entitlement;
- extended gaming machine entitlement” means the entitlement conferred on the holder of a converted casino premises licence to make gaming machines available for use on the premises in accordance with paragraph 65(6)(za) of Schedule 4 to the 2006 Transitional Provisions Order.
The full extended entitlement of 80 machines will only apply to casinos with a minimum gambling floor area (as defined in the revised legislation) of 500 sqm. There is then a sliding scale of entitlement for those casinos with a minimum gambling floor area of between 280 and 480 sqm in increments of 20 sqm.
The Casino Regulations also implements a sliding scale of entitlement to betting positions for those casinos with a minimum gambling floor area of at least 280sqm (18 positions) again with increments of 20sqm up to 500 sqm (40 positions). All converted casinos with a gambling area of less than 280sqm will have an entitlement of 16 betting positions and will retain the current entitlement of 20 gaming machines.
Lastly where one or more converted casino premises licences are located within the same venue the maximum number of machines is restricted to the overall entitlement to cover both premises – i.e. if the minimum gambling floor area exceeds 500 sqm then only 80 machines can be made available across both premises. There are a significant number of these “bolt on” electric casinos which were actually developed because of the repeated failure by previous governments to make these changes, which rendered many full service casinos unprofitable.
Given the very technical nature of the revised entitlements it is highly likely that there will be revisions/corrections to the content of the Casino Regulations and the Transitional Provisions Amendment Order and so this summary is intended as an overview of these long-promised reforms over the past 15 years.
