Operating Licence Annual Fees to change in 2017

“The Gambling Commission and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) held a joint consultation between July and September this year reviewing proposals for Commission fees, which would take effect in 2017.

The consultation response can be found here.

36 consultation responses were received from stakeholders including trade associations, licensed gambling operators and from members of the public.

Three main options were provided for consultation but the changes preferred by the Commission were:

• A reduction of 10% in total annual fee income to reflect the efficiencies achieved in the Commission’s operating costs, resulting in fee reductions for around 1,900 operators and current levels maintained for around 1,000 operators.
• Fee increases for fewer than 100 operators to ensure that the Commission’s costs are recovered on a more proportionate basis in line with the volume of gambling conducted with those operators.
• The retention of a fee category structure, but with categories being based on gross gambling yield (GGY) rather than premises numbers for betting, bingo and arcade operators.
• The sub-division of several fee categories into smaller bands to ensure that regulatory costs are spread more fairly among businesses.

Following the consultation, the draft Gambling (Operating Licence and Single-Machine Permit Fees)(Consolidation) Regulations 2017 will be submitted to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.

The Regulations will be subject to the negative resolution procedure in Parliament and would come into force on 6 April 2017”.

For further information contact gambling solicitor Richard Bradley on 0115 953 8500