Spectrum Computing

Some time ago I read this article in YS which stated that arcades in the UK were age-restricted and you had to be 16 to enter one. I was wondering if this was true. Was there some kind of law to enforce this?

djnzx48 wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2020 8:50 am Some time ago I read this article in YS which stated that arcades in the UK were age-restricted and you had to be 16 to enter one.

That's not really true. Or rather, it really depends on the type of amusement arcade that you're talking about...

Adult gaming centres/arcades with gambling/slot machines were (and are) age-restricted.

But you could have family entertainment centres/arcades, which weren't (on the whole) age restricted. The age-restricted machines would be placed in a cordoned off area.

Most seaside towns were (and still are) full of arcades aimed at families. And you'd have "video game" arcade machines in most pubs back then, cafes and leisure centres.

I have a vague memory of this but I don't think it was particularly enforced. I also vaguely recall that seaside arcades were exempt from it.

I'm pretty sure that the arcades that we had in Wolverhampton in the 80's were age restricted, but to say they were relaxed in their enforcement is an understatement.

The only time I ventured into one was after me and my mate found a £20 note on the floor by Owen & Owen. We walked into the arcade, got some change, a group of ne'er do wells saw that we had some money and asked for some change, I said no, left the arcade and they then proceeded to 'leg us' all over Wolverhamptons town centre after our cash!!!

I remember finding a Phoenix video game in a department store on a school trip to Germany and having a go on it. A friend pointed out the big sign on it that we assumed meant it was illegal for anyone under 16 /18 ? to play on it. Older than I was at the time, anyway!

I see most arcades now are organised with fruit machines in a separate area clearly marked with an '18 only' sign. And the town-centre places that might have been 90% fruities with one or two video game cabinets or pinball back in the 80s and 90s (and turned a blind eye to us schoolkids popping in for a go on R-Type) are all now just 100% gambling, with a baffle behind the door so you can't even see in!

Not sure where the '16' age limit ever came from though.

Greece used to have it stricter where all gambling was banned outright, which is why there are so few arcades in even their most 'Brits-on-the-P?s?' holiday resorts - compared, say, to Spain. I've heard tell of video game cabinets all wired together with a magic switch so that if an inspector turned up, they could all be bumped from video poker and video fuities to playing dodgy Pac-Man clones. So long as there was no gambling going on, just good-old copyright piracy!

OK, this is interesting:

https://www.gambling.com/news/labour-mp ... ng-2002900

and officially:

https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/f ... rcade.aspx

So technically, yes, children under 16 are still not allowed to enter an arcade unless accompanied by an adult.

But then gambling machines in category 'D', with stakes up to 30p and cash prizes up to £5, can be played by anyone in those circumstances. This is unique in UK gambling law, but means kids can then play penny-pushers and ticket-prize 'redemption' games (of chance or skill). And so there are plenty of fruit machines that comply with that category that kids can legally play (which I didn't know, and am not really keen on).

But if it's only pay-to-play games, and no prize or pay-out machines, then you don't need a license or any age restriction. There's also a definition of 'Skill-With-Prizes' games, like crane-grabs. So long as it can be shown that they don't rely on chance for the outcome, they don't need to be licensed either:

https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/f ... -SWPs.aspx

So the age restriction only applies to premises with gambling machines, which then need a permit or full licence depending on the categories of gambling machines they want to offer. It doesn't help that the Gambling Commission refers to gambling as 'gaming' throughout their documents though!



EDIT - See also:

https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/f ... entre.aspx

"You do not need a licence from us if you have machines that do not offer a prize, or the prize is worth the same or less than the money paid to play the machine".

So that's video games and capsule dispensers excluded, if they were ever a consideration.

Joefish wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2020 1:21 pm So technically, yes, children under 16 are still not allowed to enter an arcade unless accompanied by an adult.

As I read that, it depends on the category of the arcade.

They can't enter an AGC (an adult gaming centre). These are the type of establishment that you still tend to see in inland towns and cities (and in roped-off areas at motorway service stations!).

They can enter an FEC or UFEC (family entertainment centre) but not the adult (18+) cordoned off section of an FEC. Most seaside arcades tend to be FECs.

Being under their jurisdiction, local authorities may set additional local rules, of course.

Obviously, video game arcade machines aren't the sort of "category C" and "category D" gambling machines that these rules are covering.

You're right, sorry, I mis-read the other article. The Gambling Commission site does say:

Under 18s
No one under the age of 18 years is allowed to enter an AGC or the adults only area of a licensed FEC, there are no age restrictions in unlicensed FECs.

So the low-value Penny Falls and category D fruities have no age limit at all! Although there are warnings elsewhere that councils shouldn't be giving out kid-friendly UFEC permits for premises that are wall-to-wall (low-value) Fruit Machines.

That other link is about the British Amusement Catering Trade Association (BACTA) and possible voluntary codes of practise, such as 'ensuring children under the age of 16 can only play on the arcades under the supervision of an adult, with stickers on the machines making this clear', because that always works... . But, as you say, it's not the law.

It may have been the law back in the 80s, but I can't find anything specifically about that. Probably an EU-alignment thing eventually got them to sort things out and base everything on either being 18 or not.

Joefish wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2020 2:28 pm It may have been the law back in the 80s, but I can't find anything specifically about that. Probably an EU-alignment thing eventually got them to sort things out and base everything on either being 18 or not.

So much was local authority orientated back in the 1980s (such as film ratings) that it's always hard to know what the rules were across the UK back then.

Some info from Poland.

While we were a socialist country we still had both arcade and gambling machines.

I believe gambling was mostly forbidden by law. You couldn't legally run a casino and the only legal things were lotteries and betting on horses. Still I remember seeing from outside some rather seedy places with gambling machines. Somehow they succeeded to exist on the edge of the justice. There were only for adults, 18 years up, but I believe median of age was 30-40 there anyway. Actually I was never interested in such places.

Arcade saloons didn't have any limitations. Any kid could enter and actually most of patrons were kids.
I believe there wasn't any mention of "arcade machine" in Polish law then. So they probably even didn't have to pay any taxes from then,
not to mention any age limits.
We were a true Wild West East when it came to computers

When I was young (in a universe, far, far away otherwise known as 1980 to 1983 ), I don’t think there were any restrictions on the arcade video machines in holiday places like Butlins. As least, no one had a problem with me feeding 10 pence pieces into countless arcade video machines (well until Dad ran out of change to give to me...).

The same was true in the pubs that had arcade video machines (e.g. Space Invaders ) that Mum and Dad went to when they dragged us kids along.

By arcade video machines, I mean video games, not any kind of gambling games. Although there may have been some low value (likely 10p) one arm bandits, but I was not interested in them.

And seaside towns often had ‘amusements’, but these were mainly low value gambling machines, video arcade game machines, gob stopper dispensers, the grab machine (which in my view was a gamble, as it was rather tricky to actually get a ‘prize’). All of which took either 2p, 5p or 10p coins (20p coins had not been issued at the time).

To put this into perspective, a Mars bar cost 16p at the time.

Mark

I grew up living in seaside towns with multiple arcades. I don't remember any age-restriction in the 80s. Arcades were just like amusement parks with kids of all ages walking around by themselves. My friends and I always went to the arcades by ourselves. It was like a social meeting place for kids. We hung out in there and made friends there.

The first time I remember age-restriction was more in the 90s after arcades had started going downhill and replacing videogames with all the gambling machines. I remember around the mid-90s finding that some arcades had new age-restricted gambling sections, which seemed like pretty boring places. But I don't think I've ever been in any arcade ever that was 100% age-restricted. Arcades are for children, as far as I'm concerned.

I suspect what the law was, in the 80s, and what was actually enforced in holiday resorts and - notably - travelling fairgrounds, may have been two different things.