The Gambling Commission has confirmed a package of technical standards for land-based gaming machines in Great Britain, requiring new category A, B and certain C machines to enforce personal limits on play time and loss. The measures, published Wednesday in the regulator’s response to its 2025 consultation, will roll out in phases between March 2027 and October 2028. They target new machines rather than the existing estate, a decision shaped by the cost of retrofitting hardware already on gaming floors.
What Operators Need to Know About the New GMTS
The reforms rewrite how players interact with machines at the point of sitting down, and they carry a price tag that runs into the tens of millions annually. For operators, the headline questions are timing, cost, and which machines fall inside the net. Here is where the business impact concentrates.
- Mandatory limit-setting: New machines must force a choice between consumer-set limits (up to 60 minutes, £450 net loss) or default settings (20 minutes, £150 net loss). Playing without any limit is prohibited.
- Staff alert systems carry the largest recurring burden, estimated at £20.76 million to £41.63 million per year across the sector.
- Existing machines are largely exempt — the industry warned that roughly 7,770 machines could have faced removal had forced upgrades been mandated.
- Compendium catch: Multi-game platforms running old and new titles must bring the entire platform up to standard the moment a new game is added.
- Design restrictions ban turbo and quick-spin features, plus audiovisual “celebrations” for returns at or below the last stake.
How Personal Limits and Forced Breaks Will Work
At the start of each session, machines will prompt players to either set their own time and monetary caps or accept the defaults. Once a limit is reached, an alert triggers a mandatory break. Durations vary by design: the first two breaks under default time limits last 10 and 20 seconds, while every other break, including those tied to custom limits, runs a minimum of 30 seconds.
During each pause, machines must display safer gambling information explaining why play stopped and offering the option to end the session or adjust limits. New machines and new games on compendiums will show net position (winnings minus losses) and elapsed time by default. Players can hide that display, but only after it has been visible for at least 10 seconds.
And the design clampdown goes further. Features that speed up outcomes are out. So are the flourishes that dress up a loss as a near-win (a practice behavioural researchers have long flagged as misleading).
Staff Alerts: The Costliest Reform
Machines will send real-time alerts to staff when players hit or change a time or loss limit. But those alerts are not a mandatory cue for immediate intervention, and the Commission has deliberately throttled their volume to avoid overwhelming floor teams. Alerts will not fire at the first two default time thresholds (20 and 40 minutes) when default limits were chosen at session start.
That design choice matters because of fatigue. Flood staff with notifications and the signal drowns in noise. The regulator estimates that exempting existing machines and reducing lower-risk alerting together should roughly halve potential alert volumes.
Implementation Timetable and Scope
The new Gaming Machine Technical Standards apply to newly released category A, B1, B2, B3, B3A and B4 games classified as “new” after 30 June 2027, based on final testing dates. Rollout proceeds in three stages.
| Stage | Requirement | Effective date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Session definition takes effect | 30 March 2027 |
| 2 | Most GMTS changes, including limit-setting and sessional display | 30 June 2027 |
| 3 | Staff alerts become a legal obligation | 3 October 2028 |
Counting the Cost of Consolidation
The Commission’s business impact assessment separates one-off and recurring costs. Consolidating the standards was pegged at a moderate £12,000, with a testing strategy at £3,200. The heavier lifting sits elsewhere: between £500,000 and £1 million for limit-setting functionality, and £554,000 to £1.154 million for sessional information display on new games. Staff alerts dominate as a recurring annual cost, driven by data management systems and extra personnel.
Context frames why the regulator pressed ahead. Machine-based play produced a gross gambling yield of £2.6 billion between April 2024 and March 2025, with 88.5% coming from category B machines, and the sector has grown steadily since 2019. A market that size invites scrutiny.
From White Paper to Gaming Floor
The reforms trace back to the UK Government’s 2023 Gambling Act Review white paper and its commitments on safer gambling and transparency. The Commission logged 1,065 stakeholder responses during the 2025 consultation, from industry, clubs and advocacy groups. That feedback produced real changes: adopting net position as the monetary metric, refining session definitions to cut unnecessary interruptions, and exempting the existing estate to balance harm reduction against economic reality.
“These measures will help both to empower consumers to understand and manage their gambling and ensure operators play their part,” said Helen Rhodes, Director of Major Policy Projects and Evaluation. “Consultation feedback from a range of stakeholders helped to inform our thinking and where there was legitimate and evidenced concern, we made changes.”
Enforcement is tightening in parallel. Acting chief executive Sarah Gardner told the Bingo Association’s annual general meeting on 7 May that, from 29 July 2026, non-remote operators must immediately remove machines flagged by the Commission as lacking the required technical operating licence or failing to meet standards. The stated aim is to “streamline processes and ensure non-compliant machines are swiftly removed from premises.”
A Tax Fight Brewing Alongside
The technical standards are not the only pressure point. The Social Market Foundation has pressed the government to raise Machine Games Duty on higher-risk Category B electronic machines in the forthcoming budget. Operators are pushing back hard. Firms including high-street bookmaker Betfred and Entain argue the increase would carry a human cost and damage town-centre venues already under strain.
Which leaves the sector navigating two frameworks at once: a redesigned machine floor on one side, a possible tax hike on the other. Whether the compliance bill and a duty rise can both be absorbed without thinning the estate is the question operators are now modelling.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do these rules apply to existing gaming machines?
Largely, no. The standards target new category A, B1, B2, B3, B3A and B4 games classified as new after 30 June 2027. Existing machines are exempt because of the technical and financial burden of retrofitting.
Can a player opt out of setting limits entirely?
No. Players must either set their own limits or accept default settings. Playing with no limit at all is not permitted under the new standards.
What are the maximum default limits?
Default settings cap play at 20 minutes and £150 net loss. Consumer-set limits can run higher, up to 60 minutes and £450 net loss.
When do staff alerts become mandatory?
3 October 2028, the final stage of the phased rollout and the costliest element for operators.
Why was “net position” chosen over gross figures?
Consultation feedback favoured it. Net position (winnings minus losses) gives players a clearer read on where they actually stand during a session, rather than a figure that overstates activity.
