The Gambling Act 2005

The Gambling Act 2005 replaces most of the existing law about Gambling in Great Britain and puts in place an improved, more comprehensive structure of gambling regulation.

All responsibility for the granting of gaming and betting permissions has been taken from the licensing justices, and will now be shared by the Gambling Commission and the City Council as a licensing authority.

The three Gambling Licensing objectives are:
• Preventing gambling from being a source of crime and disorder, being associated with crime or disorder or being used to support crime;
• Ensuring that gambling is conducted in a fair and open way; and,
• Protecting children and other vulnerable persons from being harmed or exploited by gambling.

The new Act came into force on 1 September 2007. Premises had their new licences in place beforehand.

Who will be affected?Under the Gambling Act 2005, a Premise Licence is required for any of the following types of premise:

• Casino
• Bingo Hall
• Betting Shop
• Betting (track) – these are sporting venues, not just race tracks
• Amusement Arcades.

There are six types of Premise Licences:

• Casino Premise Licence
• Bingo Premise Licence
• Betting (Track) Premise Licence
• Betting (other) Premise Licence
• Adult Gaming Centres (for category B3, C and D gaming machines)
• Family Entertainment Centres (for category C and D gaming machines)

There are also Unlicensed Family Entertainment Centres, which can only have category D gaming machines. Category D machines are the existing section 34(1)’s and category C gaming machines are the existing section 34 (5E)’s.

There are five types of permit that are relevant to Stoke-on-Trent:
• (Unlicensed) Family Entertainment Centre (FEC) Gaming Machine Permit
• Club Machine Permit
• Club Gaming Permit
• Alcohol Licensed Premises Gaming Machine Permit
• Prize Gaming Permit
• Notification of up to 2 gaming machines in Alcohol Licensed Premises.

All applications to convert over your existing permits (where applicable) must be made by the 30 August 2007.

If you just want to convert your existing permit and you agree to all the mandatory and default conditions then you may make a fast track application.

If you want to make a new application then please read the guidance notes, complete the application form, serve notice on the responsible authorites and advertise your application. All of these documents can be found by following the links at the bottom of this page.

The list of our fees for the Gambling Act 2005 are on the right of the page.

To read the files you will need a copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader.