The Gaming Act 1968 and fruit machines

What the Gaming Act 1968 meant for fruit machines

Before 1968, British law had no proper scheme for gaming machines. The Betting and Gaming Act 1960 had loosened the rules on gambling, and in the years that followed gaming clubs and machines spread quickly. The 1968 legislation was Parliament’s response. It created a regulator, required gaming premises to be licensed or registered, and gave machines their own part of the law.

For the fruit machine, the Act did two lasting things. It separated the high-prize machines found in clubs and casinos from the low-prize machines in pubs and arcades, and it gave each a legal ceiling on stakes and prizes. Today’s categories are descendants of that split. Our slot machine history hub and slot machines in Britain page put the Act in the longer story.

Why Parliament passed the Gaming Act 1968

Legal histories describe the Act as a response to a ‘massive expansion in casino and machine gaming’ in the 1960s. The answer was control: the Act set up the Gaming Board for Great Britain to oversee gaming, and only licensed or registered premises could offer the higher-stakes forms. The Board remained the regulator until the Gambling Commission replaced it when the Gambling Act 2005 came fully into force in 2007.

The Act’s own long title is brief: ‘An Act to make further provision with respect to gaming; and for purposes connected therewith.’ The detail sits in its four Parts, which you can browse on legislation.gov.uk’s copy of the Gaming Act 1968 (opens in a new tab).

Part III: how the Gaming Act 1968 regulated machines

Part III, headed ‘Gaming by Means of Machines’, runs from section 26 to section 39. Its structure shows how the law thought about machines: who could sell and maintain them, where they could be used, and what happened to anyone who broke the rules.

Section 32’s heading tells you the default for jackpot machines: two per premises unless an authority allowed more.

Jackpot machines vs AWP fruit machines under the 1968 Act

The explanatory memorandum to a 2006 order under the Act sums up the split. Section 31 covered jackpot machines in casinos, bingo clubs and members’ clubs. Section 34 covered amusement-with-prizes machines in pubs, arcades and other premises where gambling was not the main business.

If you remember the ‘jackpot’ machine in a working men’s club and the smaller fruit machine in the pub, that is this split in action. Our pages on club jackpot machines and pub slot machines describe what replaced them.

Gaming Act 1968 fruit machine stake and prize limits

The 1968 Act let ministers change the money limits by order, so they moved over the years. The figures below are the ones confirmed in the sources checked: those quoted in a 2001 review of the law, and the rises made in 2006.

The cost difference adds up. At the 30p AWP stake, 100 plays cost £30; at 50p after October 2006, the same 100 plays cost £50. With a theoretical return of, say, 80% (an example figure, not a legal minimum, since none existed), the average cost of those 100 plays rose from £6 to £10. Our explainer on compensated machines shows how fruit machines managed their returns in practice.

We have not found reliable figures for the limits in force in 1968 itself or for every change between 1968 and 2001, so they are not listed. The all-cash AWP was a later variant with its own prize limit.

The 2006 increases: the last changes to the 1968 rules

The final adjustments came through the Gaming Act 1968 (Variation of Monetary Limits) Order 2006, SI 2006/2663. According to the order’s explanatory note (opens in a new tab), it raised the maximum charge for a jackpot machine outside casinos from 50p to £1, raised the AWP stake from 30p to 50p, and lifted the prize limit on all-cash AWPs from £25 to £35. Casino jackpot limits were left alone. The accompanying memorandum gives 27 October 2006 as the start date.

These changes came less than a year before the old law was switched off, a sign that the government wanted the machine trade to move gradually toward the higher limits planned under the new regime.

How many fruit machines were there under the Gaming Act 1968?

The Act’s final years were the high point of the British fruit machine. The explanatory memorandum to SI 2006/2663 (opens in a new tab) put the total in Great Britain in 2005 at 235,000 gaming machines.

Those three rows add up to 234,000, so the published total includes about 1,000 machines not broken down. A Gaming Board estimate for 2002/03 had put AWPs at about 221,000, so AWP numbers were already falling before the 2005 Act. For today’s picture, see how many slot machines there are in the UK.

The fruit machine era under the 1968 Act

Almost everything people associate with the classic British pub machine grew up under this Act. Decimal Day on 15 February 1971 changed the coins machines took, as our page on decimalisation and fruit machines explains. Electrocoin’s Bar-X was created in 1981 and was in arcades by 1983, the year the £1 coin arrived. The first UK quiz machine appeared in 1985, and JPM’s Monopoly machine of 1994 is described as the first 50p-play and first touch-screen skill with prizes machine. By 1987 JPM led the UK market, with Bell-Fruit and Barcrest sharing second place.

Holds and nudges became the signature of British machines in this period, setting them apart from American slots; our history of nudges and holds traces them. Using an offered nudge or hold well can stop you missing a win the machine has already made available, but no technique beats a machine’s built-in payout percentage.

How the Gambling Act 2005 replaced the 1968 fruit machine rules

The Gambling Act 2005 received royal assent on 7 April 2005, repealed the Gaming Act 1968, and came fully into force on 1 September 2007, when the Gambling Commission took over from the Gaming Board. It replaced the jackpot and AWP split with lettered categories, each with its own limits, set out on the Gambling Commission’s gaming machine categories page (opens in a new tab). The pub AWP became the Category C machine, now limited to a £1 stake and £100 prize.

The 1968 Act lives on in one place: casinos licensed under it, known as converted casinos. By default they may have up to 20 machines of categories B to D, and from 22 July 2025 they can take up an extended entitlement of up to 80 machines if they meet floor-space and table conditions. See machine entitlements and the Gambling Act 2005 and machines.

How to check a fruit machine’s limits today

Labels have replaced the old section numbers, but you can still work out what a machine allows.

1. Find the category on the machine’s label or information screen.
2. Check the maximum stake and prize for that category in our UK slot machine categories guide.
3. Look for the theoretical return-to-player percentage; Category B and C machines must display one, although no legal minimum is set.
4. Remember the age rule: all categories except D are 18+.
5. Set a spending limit before you play and stick to it.

Our guide to reading a fruit machine label explains each item.

Myths about fruit machines under the 1968 Act

• ‘The law set a minimum payout.’ No regulatory minimum return applied then or now; machines display a theoretical return instead.
• ‘Pub machines and club jackpots were the same.’ They were in different sections of the Act, with different stakes and prizes.
• ‘Old machines could be read once you learned their cycle.’ Some machines managed returns over time, but that never let a player beat the built-in percentage.
• ‘The 1968 Act is still the law.’ It was repealed by the Gambling Act 2005; only its converted casinos remain as a category.

Where to play fruit machine style slots online

Online fruit machine games are digital slots rather than Category C machines, so they follow online rules: £5 a spin for players aged 25 and over, £2 for 18 to 24, no autoplay and at least 2.5 seconds per spin. Our partners carry fruit-themed games, but lobbies change, so search for them at each casino.

PlayOJO gives new UK customers aged 18+ (not Northern Ireland) 80 free spins on Big Bass Bonanza with a first deposit of at least £10; each spin is 10p and winnings have no wagering. Coral offers 100 spins at 10p after a qualifying deposit and £10 of slot bets, and Ladbrokes up to 500 spins over ten days after £10 on slots. Terms apply. Slots cost money over time, so decide your budget first.

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.