The Gambling Act 2005 (GA 2005) defines a gaming machine very widely as ‘a machine that is designed or adapted for use by people to gamble (whether or not it can be used for other purposes)’.

The High Court has decided that poker machines available for use in public houses are gaming machines designed for use to play a game of chance for a prize. They were ‘recognisably capable of being used to generate a chance upon which a prize might be awarded’.

Skill machines are not gaming machines under GA 2005 and are therefore not regulated by it.

Similarly, the following are not gaming machines:

1. •

   a domestic or dual-use computer which can be used for participating in remote gambling

2. •

   remote gambling (other than a computer)—telephone or interactive television are not gaming machines (this exception does not apply to computers)

3. •

   a machine which is designed or adapted for betting only on future real events—this exemption prevents equipment such as automated betting terminals (which take bets on real, not virtual, events)