The Betting and Gaming Act 1960

What was the Betting and Gaming Act 1960?

The Betting and Gaming Act 1960 was an Act of Parliament covering England, Wales and Scotland (section 31(2) excluded Northern Ireland). Its headline change was to make off-course cash betting legal in licensed premises, the betting shop that is now a fixture of British high streets. It also allowed people to gamble for small sums on games of skill, bridge being the usual example.

Slot machines were not its subject. Yet for anyone interested in how British fruit machines and casino slots came to be regulated, the 1960 Act is the starting gun. It loosened gambling law in a way that, by the late 1960s, Parliament felt it had to pull back. Our overview of slot machines in Britain and the slot machine history hub put it in sequence.

Why the Betting and Gaming Act 1960 was passed

The Act followed the Royal Commission on Betting, Lotteries and Gaming, which sat from 1949 to 1951. Before 1960, cash betting away from the racecourse was largely illegal, but it happened anyway: bookmakers used ‘runners’ to collect bets in the street, pubs and workplaces. The law was widely broken and hard to police.

The 1960 Act’s answer was to bring that betting indoors and under licence. In the words of later academic accounts, its main aim was to permit off-course bookmaking; legal betting offices would replace runners, and street betting could then be dealt with separately. It repealed a stack of older laws, some of them centuries old.

Betting and Gaming Act 1960: key dates and conflicting records

The official legislation.gov.uk pages for this Act could not be checked for this article, and the main encyclopedia entry contradicts itself in places. Wikipedia’s Betting and Gaming Act 1960 article (opens in a new tab) gives royal assent as 29 July 1960 in its summary box but says in the text that the Act ‘was passed on 1 September 1960’. It also lists the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act 1963 as the repealing Act while showing a repeal date of 1 October 1969. Both versions are set out below.

What the 1960 Act legalised

• Licensed betting offices. Off-course cash betting moved into premises licensed by local magistrates.
• Small-stakes gaming on games of skill. Gambling for modest sums on games such as bridge became lawful.
• An end to the runner system. With legal shops available, the case for tolerating street betting fell away.

The scale was quick. Up to 1965, magistrates granted about 16,000 betting-office licences, a figure from David Miers’s 2013 history of British gambling regulation. The Act also had side effects outside betting: Wikipedia names it as one of the main reasons for the decline of greyhound racing, recording that 21 tracks registered with the National Greyhound Racing Club closed between 1961 and 1969.

How the Betting and Gaming Act 1960 opened the door to machine gaming

The 1960 Act did not set out a scheme for slot machines. That gap is the point. Academic accounts of the period describe a ‘massive expansion in casino and machine gaming’ during the 1960s under the new laws, and say the Gaming Act 1968 was needed to bring it under control. Gaming clubs and casinos multiplied, and jackpot machines, the British legal term for what Americans called one-armed bandits, spread with them.

The fix came in the Gaming Act 1968, which created the Gaming Board for Great Britain and gave machines their own part of the law, with separate rules for jackpot machines in clubs and casinos and for amusement-with-prizes machines in pubs and arcades. You can read that Part III, ‘Gaming by Means of Machines’, on the legislation.gov.uk record of the Gaming Act 1968 (opens in a new tab).

The line from 1960 to today’s machines runs like this.

1. 1960: the Betting and Gaming Act legalises betting shops and small-stakes gaming.
2. 1963: the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act consolidates the law.
3. 1968: the Gaming Act brings machines and casinos under the Gaming Board.
4. Around 1999–2001: fixed-odds betting terminals arrive in betting shops (sources differ on the year).
5. 2005: the Gambling Act creates machine categories, recognising FOBTs as Category B2.
6. 1 April 2019: the B2 maximum stake falls from £100 to £2.

Machines in betting shops today: the 1960 Act’s legacy

The betting office the 1960 Act created now holds gaming machines too. Under the Gambling Act 2005, a betting shop may have up to four machines of categories B2 to D (B3A excluded), as our page on machine entitlements explains. The B2 machine is the former FOBT, covered in our B2 FOBT rules guide and on the Gambling Commission’s B2 gaming machines page (opens in a new tab).

All betting shop machines are 18+, and B and C machines must display a theoretical return-to-player figure. See betting shop machines for what a visit looks like and UK slot machine categories for every limit.

What replaced the Betting and Gaming Act 1960

The 1960 Act had a short life as a standalone law. The Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act 1963 consolidated its betting provisions, the Gaming Act 1968 took over gaming and machines, and in 2005 the Gambling Act swept the old structure away. That Act, which received royal assent on 7 April 2005 and was fully in force from 1 September 2007, repealed both the 1963 and 1968 Acts and set up the Gambling Commission in place of the Gaming Board. Our page on the Gambling Act 2005 and machines covers the modern framework.

Common misunderstandings about the 1960 Act

• ‘It legalised fruit machines.’ It did not set out a machine scheme; machine rules arrived in 1968.
• ‘Betting shops opened on 1 January 1961.’ Most of the Act was in force then, but shops could open from May 1961.
• ‘It applied across the UK.’ It excluded Northern Ireland, which still has separate gambling law; see gaming machines in Northern Ireland.
• ‘The royal assent date is certain.’ Sources give 29 July 1960 and 1 September 1960.

Why the 1960 Act still matters to UK slot players

The 1960 Act set a pattern that still shapes British gambling: legalise, regulate, then tighten if things go too far. Machines followed that path from the 1968 limits to the 2005 categories and the 2019 B2 stake cut, and online slots have followed it since, with stake limits of £5 a spin for players aged 25 and over and £2 for those aged 18 to 24. Our UK slot machine rules guide brings the current rules together, and our slot machine bans history compares Britain with other countries.

Where to play slots online from licensed UK operators

Coral and Ladbrokes are both run by LC International Limited (Entain), so one person may not be able to hold new accounts at both; check the terms before joining. Game lists change, so search each lobby for what you want.

Coral gives new players aged 18+ 100 free spins worth 10p each on selected games after they deposit and bet £10 on slots, with no wagering on winnings. Ladbrokes gives up to 500 free spins over ten days after a £10 slot spend, again 10p each with no wagering. PlayOJO offers 80 no-wagering spins on Big Bass Bonanza for a first deposit of at least £10. Some payment methods don’t qualify, and full terms apply. Treat slots as paid entertainment.

18+. Gambling should be entertainment that costs money, not a way to make it. Decide a budget before you play: plan a slot budget. Free, confidential help: National Gambling Helpline 0808 8020 133.