The Gambling Commission is responsible for the issuing of operators licences, but the issuing of premises licences has been devolved to over 500 local authorities in the UK, each of which deals with premises licences in its own geographical area.

Because different interpretations of the provisions of the Act have been applied by these licensing authorities across the country, the Commission is seeking to clarify how the premises licensing guidelines could be made more specific, to revise the guidance it offers to licensing authorities and, possibly, to

add operating licence conditions to Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice.

Differences have emerged in the handling of licence applications, and the Commission is concerned that statutory provisions are not necessarily being correctly interpreted in regard to what is meant by ‘single premises' and to what is meant by the ‘principal activity' for which particular premises are licensed.

Single premises

Current UK licence conditions require that there should not be direct access between certain classes of licensed premises, but some operators and licensing authorities have interpreted the provisions the act in ways that the Gambling Commission believes were not intended.

For instance, the Commission is aware of instances in which an operator has ‘de-licensed' a very small area within the footprint of a building, so that customers can take one step into an unlicensed area (to which there is no independent access from the street) and then another step into a different licensed premises.

The Commission doubts that the two licensed areas are actually separate premises in such a case, and believes that there is direct access from the one ‘premises' to the other, in contravention of the provisions of the Gambling Act.

In other cases, the lack of fixed barriers between areas has created, in practice, composite ‘premises' with multiple premises licences granted and a larger total allocation of gaming machines that would be permissible under a licence for a single premises.

Principal activity

The Commission is also consulting on what ‘primary purpose' means. The Gambling Act requires the principal activity of a premises to be the activity authorised by the premises licence in operation for that premises.

The Commission is aware that some operators, in particular existing Adult Gaming Centre (AGC) operators, may be considering applying for operating licences, or have been given operating licences, even though they do not intend to provide the primary activity the relevant type of licence authorises on their premises.

Such operators may be applying for betting or bingo operating and premises licences under the Act because they believe that this will allow them to take advantage of the gaming machine entitlements conferred by such licences. In other cases operators have continued under a premises licence with arrangements that were permitted or required under their previous permit or licence.

For example, the Commission considers that in a betting, bingo or casino premises, the betting, bingo or casino gaming must constitute the primary activity and not be ancillary to, or even wholly superseded by, the gaming machines which it is permissible to make available for use under the relevant betting, bingo or casino licence.

What constitutes primary or ancillary activity lies at the heart of the matter and is a question of fact and degree to be determined by the licensing authority in each case.

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