This Revenue & Customs Brief outlines our policy in relation to quiz games played on machines and their liability to Amusement Machine Licence Duty (AMLD). It also covers the treatment of arrears of AMLD which may be due in law. The brief is without prejudice to the current review for the purposes of AMLD of Skill With Prizes (SWP) machines and the games played on them. The Review is being undertaken by Treasury and HM Revenue & Customs, in consultation with the Gambling Commission and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.
Our intention is that only those quiz machines that are not defined as gaming machines will fall outside the scope of AMLD. However, we accept that advice in Amusement Machine Licence Duty Notice 454 (covering changes effective from 2006) may have misled businesses into believing that machines on which quiz games were played were always exempt from AMLD and that businesses would suffer detriment if we sought to recover the underpaid duty.
Quiz games played on a machine can be games of chance if they involve both an element of chance and an element of skill, an element of chance that can be eliminated by superlative skill or are presented as involving an element of chance.
The machines on which these games are played are gaming machines under s25 of the Betting and Gaming Duties Act 1981 and depending on stake and prize limits they are licensable gaming machines.
Gaming machines depending on stake and prize limits are liable to AMLD.
If you provide a gaming machine on any premises you must hold a valid AMLD licence before you make the machine available for play unless the machine falls within one of the exemptions for small-prize gaming machines.
Where businesses have provided quiz games that are games of chance on machines, we will not be collecting any arrears of AMLD which may be due in law before the date of this Brief. We will only collect any arrears of AMLD which may be due in law from the date of this Brief. This paragraph will not apply if you have provided other games of chance on a machine which also provides quiz games.
There is further guidance in Notice 454 (October 2007) which can be viewed on our website at www.hmrc.gov.uk under ‘quick links’ select ‘Excise’ then 'Gambling'.
Note: Until the guidance is updated it should be read in conjunction with this Brief.
Issued 9March 2010
