In IFX Investment Company and Others v HMRC [2016] EWCA Civ 436 (4 May 2016) the Court of Appeal found that there could be a game even in the absence of interaction between players.
The issue was whether ‘Spot the Ball’ (STB) was a game of chance under the Gaming Act 1968 so that it was exempt from VAT under VATA 1994 Sch 9 Group 4.
The purpose of the game was to ‘use your skill and judgment to decide from all the information contained in the picture the spot where you think the centre of the ball is most likely to be and indicate the spot by making a cross’. HMRC contended that there was a requirement in law that a ‘game’ involved inter-player interaction; and since a competitor simply had to send in his coupon this was not a game.
The Court of...
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