Machines Are Getting Limits You Cannot Skip. Online Slots Still Let You Walk Past Them.
Sit down at a new category B gaming machine in 2027 and before you can play you will have to answer a question: how long, and how much. Either you set your own numbers or you take the machine’s. There is no third option and no way past the screen.
Log in to a UK online casino on the same day and nothing of the kind happens. The deposit limit tools are there, by law, and nobody makes you look at them.
The Gambling Commission published its decisions on 30 September 2026, closing a consultation that opened in January 2025 and drew 1,065 responses. For anybody who plays slots online, the interesting thing is not the detail. It is that the land-based sector is about to get a stronger version of a protection the online sector has had for years and barely uses.
The numbers the Commission has settled on
| Element | What it is |
|---|---|
| Default time limit | 20 minutes |
| Default monetary limit | £150 net position |
| Maximum customer-set time limit | 60 minutes |
| Maximum customer-set monetary limit | £450 net loss |
| Break on hitting the first time limit | 10 seconds minimum |
| Break on hitting the second time limit | 20 seconds minimum |
The Commission’s wording on the defaults is unambiguous: “We have therefore decided to proceed with default time and monetary limits of 20 minutes and £150 respectively”. On the ceilings: “the upper limits for customer set limits of 60 minutes and a net loss of £450 are fair and proportionate for all sectors and machine categories (including casinos and B1s)”.
So you can raise the limits, up to a point, and the point is £450 of net losses in a session. Above that, the answer is no.
Net position, not money in
The metric moved during consultation, and this is the change that does the most work.
The original proposal counted deposited sums. The final rules count net position: what you are up or down. The Commission applied that shift “across all proposals”.
If you have read our piece on how online deposit limits work you will recognise why that matters, because online went the other way. A deposit limit counts money in, gross, and a withdrawal does not give you headroom back. It is a cap on exposure, not on loss.
A machine limit set on net position is a cap on loss. Win £100 early and you have bought yourself room. Lose £150 and the session ends regardless of what you put in. Those are genuinely different instruments, and for a player on a bad run the machine version bites sooner.
The part that makes it work: you cannot ignore it
Everything above is detail. This is the mechanism.
The Commission required an active choice, and then tightened the wording after consultation so that the choice is presented fairly. Its final position allows consumers to:
- set a single time or monetary limit if they want, with the default applying to the one they did not set
- see the free text box and the default limits “at the same time and, additionally, with equal prominence”
- use sliders, arrows or pre-set lists to help them decide
And then the line that stops the whole thing being gamed: such functionality “must not anchor or attempt to influence consumer decision-making”.
Equal prominence will sound familiar to anybody who has read the online rules, where gross and net limit options must be offered with at least equal prominence. The Commission is applying the same thinking in a different room: a choice is not a real choice if one answer is in large type and the other is a link.
What it adds on machines is compulsion. Online, the tools exist and the player has to go and find them. On a machine, the screen is between you and the reels.
What it does not cover
Three carve-outs, and one of them is large.
Existing machines are out. The limit-setting and sessional display standards apply to new machines and games. The Commission says this “responds directly to concerns around costs to business, and in particular to smaller licensees and the social club sector”. So the machine in your local in 2027 is very unlikely to ask you anything.
No exemptions within the new category, though. Operators asked for community games, tablets and electronic betting terminals to be excluded. The Commission refused, and said why: an exemption “could also lead to commercial disadvantage and the unintended consequence of licensees driving consumers towards such products as a means of avoiding the new standards”. It put the cost of compliance for new machines and games at £500,000 to £1 million.
Staff alerts are delayed and watered down. The requirement for staff to be alerted at the first two default time thresholds has gone, on cost grounds. What survives arrives on 3 October 2028, and the Commission was pointed about it: “We must emphasise that the two-year timeline is a hard stop.”
Two changes to the games themselves
Buried under the limit-setting, and arguably more interesting if you care about how slot games are designed.
Awards below the stake size will not be celebrated. A 20p return on a 50p spin is a loss. Machines have historically announced it with the same lights and sound as a win, which is the single most studied piece of design misdirection in the industry. New standards stop it.
Features that shorten the time until a result is known are prohibited. No turbo, no slam stop, no skipping the animation on a new machine.
Online slots already lost autoplay and quick spin under the remote technical standards. This brings machines into line, and it is a reminder that the regulator treats speed of play as a harm in itself rather than a convenience. We went through the online version of that argument in slot session management rules.
When it happens
| Date | What comes into force |
|---|---|
| 30 March 2027 | The new definition of a gaming machine “session” |
| 30 June 2027 | Limit setting, sessional information, breaks in play, the game design standards |
| 3 October 2028 | Staff alert requirements |
The session definition goes first deliberately, because every other rule depends on knowing when a session starts and ends. The Commission designed it so that breaks in play “are not triggered before a game is played”, which is a sensible piece of plumbing: nobody wants a forced break before their first spin.
What this says about where online is heading
We are not going to pretend to know what the Commission does next. But the direction of the last three years is not hard to read.
Online has acquired stake limits, a ban on bonus buys, financial risk assessments and a tightened definition of what may be called a deposit limit. Every one of those is a cap on what an operator may offer. None of them makes a player stop and set anything before they play.
The machine rules do exactly that, and the Commission has now said in print that it considers an unavoidable active choice “fair and proportionate for all sectors”. If that reasoning holds for somebody standing in an arcade, it is difficult to see why it would not hold for somebody sitting at home at one in the morning.
Our honest advice in the meantime: set your limits now, while it is still voluntary and while you are calm. The tools are in your account settings and they work. How deposit limits actually work covers the gross and net distinction, and why the most restrictive limit always wins.
Frequently asked questions
What are the new gaming machine limits?
Default limits of 20 minutes and £150 net position, which you can change up to a maximum of 60 minutes and £450 net loss. They apply to new category B gaming machines.
Can I refuse to set a limit?
No. You either set your own or accept the defaults. You can set just one of the two, and the default applies to the other.
When do the rules start?
The session definition comes in on 30 March 2027 and the limit setting, sessional information and game design standards on 30 June 2027. Staff alerts follow on 3 October 2028.
Do the rules apply to machines already in pubs and arcades?
No. Existing machines and games are outside the limit-setting and sessional display standards, on cost grounds. Only new ones are covered.
Is £150 a deposit limit or a loss limit?
A loss limit. The Commission shifted the monetary metric from deposited sums to net position, so winnings count towards it. That is the opposite of an online deposit limit, which counts money in and ignores withdrawals.
What happens when I hit a limit?
A break in play, with a minimum of 10 seconds at the first default time limit and 20 seconds at the second, with safer gambling messaging shown during it.
Does any of this apply to online slots?
Not directly. These are the Gaming Machine Technical Standards, which govern land-based machines. Online slots sit under the remote technical standards, which already restrict stake sizes, bonus buys and speed of play.
The short version
- New category B machines will make you choose a limit before you play, from 30 June 2027.
- Defaults are 20 minutes and £150 net position; the most you can set is 60 minutes and £450.
- The money figure is net loss, not money in, which is stricter than the online equivalent.
- Existing machines are exempt. Community games, tablets and EBTs are not.
- Below-stake wins can no longer be celebrated, and turbo spin is out.
The Commission’s summary is on its own blog (opens in a new tab), and the reasoning behind the two figures is set out in its consultation response (opens in a new tab). Both were published on 30 September 2026.