who regulates swp's?

cool · Post by **cool** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 12:38 am

Had a weird conversation with a representative of the Gaming Commission today.Asked them if they regulate the swp sector of the gaming industry.They said no as you do not need a licence for a quiz machine and quiz games are a game of skill.When I pointed out that AWP'S are a game of skill in the pubs at least as there are vastly more people making a living from fruit machines than swp's they agreed.
their website states their aim:
'Keeping crime out of gambling
Ensuring gambling is conducted fairly and openly
Protecting children and vulnerable people from being harmed or exploited by gambling'.
There is no differentiation between the differing forms of gambling,presumably the crime element relates to the players and not the operators.They are as much use as the other independent body'Gamcare'who are funded by the gaming industry.At least they make me laugh my head off when a gamcare spokesman spout their 'independent' views in the media.Please tell me if there is a non-trade body that regulates the swp sector.Thanks.

WaterGate · Post by **WaterGate** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 10:09 am

Now you don't really believe that fruit machines are a game of skill? And if you do, you're a good player.

WaterGate · Post by **WaterGate** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 10:11 am

& how do you end up having a conversation with a representative of the gaming commission? Like meeting Neil Armstrong in the bogs that is surely?

cp999 · Post by **cp999** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 11:07 am

As far as I was aware there was no specific regulatory body.

And since when did you not need a licence for an SWP? c. 1995 the licensing system was changed so that ini addition to a licence being required for AWPs, a different licence (about half the price) was required for SWPs. Maybe it has been changed recently and I've not noticed, though it's hard to imagine the government getting rid of a revenue-raising process.

I think that in the case of fruit machines regulation (of whether machines behave "legitimately", whatever that means) is performed by the industry itself and the Gaming Commission have no real powers over them. However I'm sure someone from the fruit section would know much better than I do.

quizard · Post by **quizard** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 1:34 pm

In the early years of quiz machines they did need a licence which was often displayed on the wall next to the machine. This requirment disappeared somewhere along that way.

The complete lack of regulation is apparent in the obviously fixed psuedo-skill games we have today. But I wouldn't complain too much while ever you can still make a worthwile profit out of them. It may have been the lack of regulation that gave SWP's a new lease of life and kept them in nearly every pub today. If makers were forced make them fair and transparent they may well choose not to make them at all.

kingzilla · Post by **kingzilla** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 2:30 pm

There is a code of practice that swp developers have to loosely follow which is a guideline to the amusement machine industry. One those state that all games should be fair to customers.

cp999 · Post by **cp999** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 12:39 am

kingzilla wrote:There is a code of practice that swp developers have to loosely follow which is a guideline to the amusement machine industry. One those state that all games should be fair to customers.

That's pleasantly vague.

I wonder how the old hangman trick of "offer 250 pts for (say) 3rd clue, giving prize advance because I'm going to ask you so many crappy questions you can't possibly get there .. oh wtf, you answered them all, you weren't supposed to do that, so the prize advance will now disappear" (to cite just one example of many ethically dubious bits of SWP programming) fits in with these guidelines. Still, to paraphrase quizard, best not to bite the hand that feeds one..

borgcontact4 · Post by **borgcontact4** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 8:29 pm

Facts, there has been an Amusement Machine License Duty in the past. Kenneth Baker, the Chancellor at the time introduced in 1995. It covered SWP and Video games. It was set by price of play and that is why machines were set on 50p, it was removed in recent years and so the introduction of £1.0 games on terminals. The duty was £250 per annum for games with a price of play above 50p and was calculated by player positions, so a 4 position driving game with 4 screens was cahrged at 4 times the duty, £1000.

SWP's are covered or were under Prize competition games, like crosswords and televison quiz games, so from £10.00 games to million pound games are all based on skill.
My sources inform me that the Gambling Commison consider Deal or No Deal, TV program, to be a game of chance and so be illegal, however they can't enforce the law due to the impact upon the public

Can you imagine the chaos that would ensue?

However if a coin operated game in the guise of an SWP has chance in it they should act. The facts of the matter are they have never, and the trade consider they will leave well alone. There is a code of practice in force but it is not complied with, by most game design companies.

Anyway there you have it. I am sure this will bring some interesting and also boring responses.

Nil Satis · Post by **Nil Satis** » Fri Nov 14, 2008 11:33 am

borgcontact4 wrote:However if a coin operated game in the guise of an SWP has chance in it they should act.

Surely they all have an element of chance in them, in the sense that the question set you are given on any one game is randomly generated? For it to be a true test of skill then the same question set would need to be applied each time, in the same way that all marathon runners have the same course, all F1 drivers use the same track and so on.

Personally I don't mind chance if it is fairly applied - if the end game on Deal or No Deal for example was random then roughly 1 in every 16 times you would win the JP. Obviously such a game would then have to defend itself by making it harder to qualify but that would be the ideal I'd say.