Summary of the Act

The Gambling Act 2005 repeals the Betting, Gaming & Lotteries Act 1963, the Gambling Act 1968 and the Lotteries and Amusements Act 1976.

The Gambling Act 2005 introduces a new regime for regulating gambling and betting in the United Kingdom. It took effect from 1 September 2007.

The Gambling Commission now regulates all gambling and betting, including the larger Society Lotteries, apart from the National Lottery and Spread betting. The Gambling Commission licences the operators and individuals involved in providing gambling and betting facilities.

Local licensing authorities, have a duty under the Act to licence premises where gambling is to take place and to licence certain other activities and register small society lotteries.

'Gambling' is defined in the Act as either gaming, betting or taking part in a lottery:

• 'gaming' means playing a game of chance for a prize
• 'betting' means making or accepting a bet on the outcome of a race, competition, or any other event; the likelihood of anything occurring or not occurring; or whether anything is true or not true
• a 'lottery' is where persons are required to pay in order to take part in an arrangement, during the course of which one or more prizes are allocated by a process which relies wholly on chance.

For Society Lotteries the key points are that:

• Regulations determine that there are two broad categories of lottery operator
• 1. Those with annual sales of less than £250,000 or with proceeds in a single lottery of less than £20,000, are controlled by registration with the Local Authority at the Town Hall
• 2. Those with annual sales above £250,000 per year or with proceeds in a single lottery of more than £20,000 should be registered with the Gambling Commission.
• There is an 80/20 rule for lottery expenses, with 20% of the proceeds (as a minimum) being paid to the good cause and the remaining 80%, or whatever is left, being split between prizes and expenses. Expenses will be inspected to ensure they are “reasonable”
• The price of tickets is now unrestricted. However the limit on proceeds is still £2m for an individual lottery; and £10m annual turnover.
• Rollovers are to be permitted up to a point, but the rules on the limits on prizes and proceeds still applies
• The Government thought it preferable to “retain the flexibility” to review the limits when a review is needed, rather than prescribe reviews at regular intervals. However, given the importance that our sector attaches to such reviews, the Government will “as a matter of custom and practice expect the Gambling Commission to offer them advice every three years”. This is now well overdue
• “Remote” Electronic lotteries by mobile ‘phone etc will be permitted subject to an approval process. There will, however, still have to be a “virtual” ticket which participants can retain. A special licence will be required, in addition to the normal operating licence to run a remote lottery.
• Cross border operation is still refused so you can’t, for example, have people with addresses in Ireland on your draw mailing list.
• On the issue of retaining unsold and returned tickets, this requirement has been lifted.
• The age limits for the purchase of lottery tickets weren’t changed. So you can’t sell a lottery ticket to anyone under the age of 16, and your canvassers and collectors must also be over 16.
• On the matter of barmen and newsagents selling society lottery tickets the Government has accepted that "we do not think that it is necessary to limit the promotion of society lotteries in that way, and we are happy to see the current practice continue".