Britain’s Slot Machines Would Like The Taxman To Look At This Tiny Bingo Corner

Britain is removing a business-rates discount from adult gaming centres in England. Many venues run by major slot-machine operators already have bingo licences, however, and could retain the discount depending on how the rules are defined and enforced.

Please direct all questions about the room full of slot machines to the little pile of bingo tablets in the corner. They handle our identity.

The Guardian visited four Merkur venues and one Admiral venue. They advertised bingo, but appeared to offer mainly slot machines; the bingo tablets occupied a small corner. In at least one venue, an employee said nobody used the tablets, which appeared not to work.

Not working? In a business sense, those tablets may be the hardest-working objects in the building. The slot machines handle the customers. The tablets potentially handle the tax classification. One of these departments requires electricity; the other may be able to get surprisingly far on a sign.

This concerns business rates, not an escape from the separate increase in duty on slot-machine takings from 20 to 25 percent. The government has introduced two changes. Keeping them separate is important, particularly when the business under discussion already has a talent for occupying more than one category at once.

More than 200 arcades have bingo licences, according to regulator records, although duplicated entries complicate the precise count. These are existing licences, not evidence that hundreds of executives simultaneously woke up after the budget with a lifelong passion for numbered balls.

Still. Imagine the board presentation. Revenue: slot machines. Floor space: slot machines. Lights, noise, customers: predominantly slot machines. Corporate soul: those tablets behind you.

I would like that kind of flexibility. A few tomatoes on my windowsill and suddenly the apartment is an agricultural enterprise. The sofa is grazing land. The television is crop surveillance. Please send the appropriate relief before the basil dies and my entire holding reverts to residential use.

There is, inconveniently, an expert. Altus Group’s Paul Turner-Mitchell says a bingo licence alone does not determine business-rates treatment. The result could depend on the Treasury’s definition of an adult gaming centre and local enforcement. The licence is not a magic discount coupon, however vigorously somebody may wish to shake it at a council.

Which means officials may eventually have to visit the building and establish what mainly happens inside it. An exciting new regulatory technique known as looking around.

I’m imagining the inspection. Welcome to our bingo venue. Mind the slot machines. More slot machines through there. Yes, those are also slot machines. The bingo is over here, beside the part of the room you nearly mistook for storage.

Could we see somebody play it?

Terrible timing. Our bingo department is currently engaged in supporting the premises’ legal personality.

Merkur and Admiral did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment. The industry’s trade body, Bacta, warns that the tax changes will force family businesses to reconsider investment and larger operators to scale back plans. That is a real commercial objection. It deserves to be debated as an objection to the tax, not settled by whether a corner of an otherwise different operation can introduce itself as the whole building.

The government already recognizes the licensing issue, and proposals to tighten the rules are under consultation. MP Alex Ballinger wants ministers to make sure the licences cannot sidestep the new rates rules. So nobody needs to invent a task force to discover bingo. They need to decide how much bingo makes a bingo venue.

A question I had not expected to involve quite this much corporate finance.

The eventual inspection must be a tense day for those little tablets. Years in the corner, possibly ignored, and suddenly the premises manager needs them to give the performance of their lives.

Come on. Turn on. Do something bingo-ish. The council’s here.

For fuck’s sake, somebody win a number.