The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has confirmed new technical and licensing requirements for land-based gaming machines, with the first measures due to take effect in March 2027.

The framework follows a consultation launched in 2025 that received 1,065 responses and covered the Gaming Machine Technical Standards, the Gaming Machine Testing Strategy and Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice. The reforms stem from the government’s 2023 Gambling Act Review white paper.

New machines will have to give players clearer information about how long they have been playing and their net position during a session. They will also introduce mandatory limit-setting tools and stricter rules on game design.

Helen Rhodes, Director of Major Policy Projects and Evaluation, said in a press release:

“These measures will help both to empower consumers to understand and manage their gambling and ensure operators play their part.

“Consultation feedback from a range of stakeholders helped to inform our thinking and where there was legitimate and evidenced concern, we made changes. We are confident that the consultation has led to a package of changes where the benefits to consumers are proportionate to the costs of implementation and that the staged timeline for implementation is reasonable and achievable.”

New Limits and Session Controls

New machines must prompt players to select personal time and loss limits at the start of a session or accept default settings.

Consumer-selected limits can reach a maximum of 60 minutes and £450 in net losses. Default parameters will be capped at 20 minutes and £150.

Once players reach a limit, the machine will trigger a mandatory break and display safer gambling information.

The first default time threshold at 20 minutes can result in a break of at least 10 seconds. The second, at 40 minutes, can trigger a minimum break of 20 seconds. Breaks linked to customer-set limits or other adjusted thresholds will last at least 30 seconds.

The Commission has also changed how a session is defined. Session time will reflect actual gameplay instead of including activities such as depositing money or moving through menus before play begins.

New machines and newly added games on multi-game compendiums will display elapsed time and net position by default. Players may hide that information after it has been shown for at least 10 seconds during a break.

Design Rules and Staff Alerts

The new standards will prohibit celebratory audiovisual effects for returns equal to or below the amount staked.

Features that reduce the time before an outcome appears will also be banned. These include turbo spin, quick spin and slam stop functions.

The regulator revised its approach to staff alerts after consultation feedback raised concerns about excessive notifications. Staff will not receive alerts when players hit the first two default time thresholds of 20 and 40 minutes.

Alerts linked to higher-risk situations and changes to time or loss limits will remain part of the framework.

The Commission said this approach should reduce alert fatigue and allow staff to focus on cases involving greater potential risk.

The changes apply to newly released category A and category B machines, along with certain category C products. Category B machines affected include B1 casino machines, B2 fixed-odds betting terminals and B3/B4 slot-style machines.

Existing Machines Largely Exempt

The Commission decided not to apply most of the new requirements retrospectively to machines already in operation.

Businesses raised concerns during the consultation about the technical difficulty and cost of upgrading existing equipment. Industry estimates indicated that around 7,770 machines could face removal if mandatory retrofitting were required.

The regulator concluded that applying the standards mainly to new machines would provide a more proportionate balance between consumer protection and implementation costs.

The rules will be introduced in three stages.

The revised session definition will take effect on March 30, 2027. Most changes to the Gaming Machine Technical Standards will follow on June 30, 2027. Staff-alert requirements will become mandatory on October 3, 2028.

The Commission’s impact assessment estimates a £12,000 cost for GMTS consolidation and £3,200 for changes to the testing strategy.

Limit-setting functionality could cost between £500,000 and £1 million, while session-information displays may require investment of between £554,000 and £1.154 million.

Staff alerts represent the largest expected expense, with annual costs estimated between £20.76 million and £41.63 million. The regulator expects its revised alert thresholds and exemption for existing machines to reduce the number of notifications.

The land-based gaming machine market generated £2.6 billion in gross gambling yield between April 2024 and March 2025, with category B machines accounting for 88.5% of the total.

The phased rollout gives manufacturers and operators time to adapt to the revised technical requirements before most of the new standards become mandatory in June 2027.