UK’s smaller casinos to get option of increasing to 80 slot machines
Some British casinos will soon be able to add more slot machines to their gaming floors with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) publishing draft amendments to the Gaming Act 1968 and Gambling Act 2005, in a move separate from 2023 Gambling White Paper.
Casinos that operated under the 1968 Gaming Act will be able to operate 80 slot machines, up from the current 40. The proposals also include adjustments to the machine-to-table ratio, the introduction of sports betting and the abolition of casino membership.
To qualify, premises must ‘contain a gambling area, the floor area of which is no less than
280m², each gaming machine is of Category B, C or D and the number of gaming machines is not more than five times the number of gaming tables used in the casino.’
One of the UK’s leading operators, Grosvenor Casinos, will install an extra 882 slots ‘over the next two to three years,’ taking its total to 1,367 machines.
John O’Reilly, Chief Executive of Rank Group, said: “The modernisations will enable us to improve the Grosvenor customer proposition, helping to grow jobs and generating investment in local communities. We have a detailed roadmap of investments which we will now accelerate as we begin to roll out these reforms over the coming months.”
