I assume Paul got his information from the website which hosts a PDF which starts thus:
The Gambling Commission website has recently updated its guidelines to help
identify machines requiring a Gaming Licence and those considered Skill With Prizes
and not requiring a licence. This is welcome news for collectors of Allwin machines
who have long wanted clarification. The following addresses the main points as
defined on their site.
It then goes on to elaborate. But this document is a bit of a mystery because it's not clear who wrote it (I found nothing illuminating about the website hosting the PDF), nor does it say
when the supposed changes were made, and the Commission doesn't make any specific reference to allwins.
It's interesting though, because it's based upon an interpretation of the Commission's SWP definition (Skill With Prizes do not need a license or permit to be operated in public).
We have tended to pessimistically assume that allwins would currently be viewed as games of chance because section 6 of the Gambling Act 2005 says:
(2) In this Act “game of chance”—
(a) includes—
(i) a game that involves both an element of chance and an element
of skill,
(ii) a game that involves an element of chance that can be
eliminated by superlative skill...
However, there's a serious problem with the drafting of the Act above, because it tries to define "game of chance" using the expression "element of chance". That's to say, the concept of chance itself isn't actually defined, explained or analysed, and is assumed to be understood. This is unhelpful, because definitions of "chance", "luck" and "random" are slippery and debatable. We saw this in our long
Allwins Skill discussion.
It's clear from the Act that demonstrating an allwin is a game of skill by consistently winning would count for nothing if there was still considered to be an element of chance. So instead of arguing that it is a game of skill, one would have to argue that it is
not a game of chance. This would depend, not upon the existence of skill, but the definition of "chance".
As the Gambling Commission says, ultimately it is for the Courts to decide, but it seems unlikely they will ever be required to do so.