There have been some outbursts this week from groups in Plymouth against gambling, who say that there is too high a risk of players in the city developing problem habits thanks to the huge amount of casino style gambling machines that are available there, with the latest figures showing that £86.5 million was pumped into these betting machines over the last year. The machines in question are known as Fixed Odds Betting Terminals or FOBTs, where you can bet up to £100 every 20 seconds on games such as roulette.
These are not quite casino fruit machines, but still the Campaign for Fairer Gaming has been putting considerable effort and money into researching the figures in order to support their quest for tighter regulations.
Adrian Parkinson, a Campaign for Fairer Gambling consultant said: “Fixed Odds Betting Terminals (FOBTs) are touch-screen roulette and casino gaming machines in betting shops, on which it is possible to stake up to £100 every 20 seconds. The high stakes and speed of play have led to the machines being called “the crack cocaine of gambling”, and the Gambling Act 2005 limits each betting shop to four FOBTs – so bookies leapfrog regulations by opening up as many shops as possible, which is why we get clustering, especially in poorer areas as our research has shown. In 2007, a Scoping Study into the Gambling Act recommended FOBTs be “closely monitored” because of international research that suggested they had features that could create more problem gamblers. However, no such monitoring has taken place, and the government is due to respond to a Select Committee report next week calling for the cap of four FOBTs per shop to be lifted as an “anti-clustering measure”. We believe the only way to stop machine-driven proliferation of betting shops is to make the machines less profitable. So we recommend reducing to maximum stake from £100 down to £2, increasing the time between plays, and removing table game content – all of these recommendations would bring B2 machines in line with other Category B machines.”
It remains to be seen what kind of view local authorities will take.