Section 343: Value of Prize
849.This section is concerned with determining how the value of a prize is to be calculated. A number of provisions in the Act give powers to the Secretary of State to prescribe the maximum value of a prize that may be won at gambling. This section allows such regulations to include provision for determining what is meant by the value of a prize, where they are non-monetary prizes.
850.Subsection (3) authorises a practice commonly known as “trading-up”. This is where a person who has won two or more separate prizes from a gaming machine can swap the prizes won for another, different, prize. In the exchange, the value of the prize received must not be greater than the total value of the prizes that could have been won by the player from his winning turns on the machine. Thus, if a person wins two small toys from a Category D machine (and the maximum value of each prize is £8 under the Category D classification), then the two small toys can be swapped for one big toy provided the value of the big toy does not exceed £16 (2 x £8 prizes). The swap must also comply with any rules about the nature or type of prize that could have been delivered by the machine.
