Gambling constitutes an inherent part of British cultural landscape but due to its potential to cause significant detriments it remains controversial. The Gambling Act 2005 liberalised the UK gambling industry and created an environment where commercial gambling, although regulated, can be offered within a relatively free market setting and its consumption can be stimulated by advertising. The task of the law is to provide a framework where the need for customer choice, a flourishing market, and the respect for private liberties can be adequately balanced with the duty to protect vulnerable individuals such as minors. The Gambling Act has been positioned as containing sufficient protective measures to prevent minors from being harmed by gambling but there is still a relative paucity of research that focuses specifically on how this regime affects this age group. This thesis fills some of the gaps by analysing whether the existing legal and regulatory framework reconciled the conflicting priorities adequately. It uniquely combines legal doctrinal analysis with empirical evidence collected from a sample of British pupils to expose that the liberalisation of gambling has brought severe limitations on protecting minors that are not sufficiently counterbalanced by existing measures. This thesis demonstrates that the legal definition of prohibited gambling does not incorporate all activities that may lead to gambling-related harm. While the age verification measures adopted by online gambling providers appear to be successful, young people continue to have easy access to gambling in land-based venues and are exposed to significant volumes of gambling advertising that appeals to them but these factors are not sufficiently compensated by any holistic regulatory strategy. However, the thesis indicates that the correlation between fun and real gambling games should not be attributed to overlaps in minor's motivations for engaging in either form or to minors' lack of accurate differentiation between them.

Within technical retail solutions, such as self-checkouts, Click & Collect boxes, and vending machines, there is always an ongoing process to find ways to make them as self-sufficient as possible. One occasion where personnel is still needed is when an age control for age-restricted products needs to be done. In this thesis work the possibilities to use face scanning as an age verification tool is investigated. The age estimation used by the examined software is powered by an AI that performs the age estimation based on a face scan of the person in front of the camera. It is the user experience, as well as the accuracy of the age estimation, that is being analysed. The study was done with quantitative research that included literature studies and a user test together with a survey.  There were a total of 100 participants in the user test and 89 in the survey. From the results in this paper, the conclusion is that the age estimation is not yet accurate enough to be used in real-life situations, at least not without a high age buffer. The user experience was perceived as good and indicated that a solution like this would be approved and used by the approaching crowd. / Inom tekniska lösningar i detaljhandeln, såsom självutcheckningskassor, Click & Collect boxar samt varuautomater, så finns det en ständigt pågående process för att hitta sätt att göra lösningarna så självgående som möjligt. Ett tillfälle där personal fortfarande behövs är när en ålderskontroll för åldersbegränsade produkter behöver utföras. I detta examensarbete undersöks möjligheterna att använda ansiktsskanning som ett verktyg för åldersverifiering. Åldersestimationen som används av den undersökta programvaran drivs av en AI som utför åldersestimering baserat på en ansiktsskanning av personen framför kameran. Det är användarupplevelsen, såväl som noggrannheten i åldersestimeringen, som har analyserats. Studien utfördes som en kvantitativ forskning som innefattade en litteraturstudier samt ett användartest med en tillhörande enkät.    Det var totalt 100 deltagare i användartestet och 89 i undersökningen. Från resultaten i denna rapport är slutsatsen att åldersestimationen ännu inte är tillräckligt träffsäker för att kunna användas i verkliga situationer, åtminstone inte utan en hög åldersbuffert. Användarupplevelsen upplevdes som bra och indikerade att en lösning som denna skulle godkännas och användas av målgruppen i fråga.