Fruit Machine Chat

In today's independent:http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/com ... 06217.html

What do people here think? I've got mixed views. I enjoy playing some of their games - mainly the DOND ones - but I have no interest in Roulette, it bores the life out of me. I wish the bookies had quiz machines installed as well so you could have a place where you can do what you want to do instead of the pantomime of buying a crap drink/worrying about getting banned/not being able to collect your winnings etc etc.

Yes I read this earlier, good article but doesn't really say much that hasn't already been said in the press.

Sadly the days of AWP's in bookies are long gone because in terms of generating profits they can never compete with the mighty FOBT. For this very reason you will never see quiz machines in mainstream betting shops. Also you shouldn't kid yourself that having quiz machines sited in betting shops would give you carte blanche to line your pockets, after all bookmakers don't like people who consistently win. I got banned from many betting shops when they had AWP's.

SWP games were certainly illegal in betting shops in the past. I dunno if the recent changes in their status now makes any difference. Gala casinos tried SWP games (WWTBAM, DOND and rarely 100-1) on their multi-game terminals for about a year. I think all they found was they made next to nothing and blocked the machine for players who would lose some real money.

I wasn't aware that they'd once had quizzers mind. To be fair I only started visiting bookies regualrly the last few year when they did the promotions he's on about. I've always come off better thanks to them. the first time they had a DOND promotion with freeplay in Betfred I got a JP - think it was £150. I can remember being over the moon and the staff wife who served me didn;t give a shit.

It's all very well bashing the high street bookie, but surely all these problems pale some what in comparison to the on line sector? It's not present on our high streets and it's even more dangerous. For every article against FOBT, there should be multiple articles detailing the misery of on line gaming. A major player here is Sky Vegas. An industry record of £50,000 max evens money allowed on roulette. I'm surprised Murdoch hasn't run off a few articles in his papers as to the damage this could do to a man


I'm not defending the bookies here or labour's lax legislation but it does seem that the media are being narrow minded when reporting these kind of stories.

Betfred had SWPs on line. Catchphrase, Battleships, Hangman etc Mostly the old JPM Proteus stuff. I wonder if any of the quiz folk on here did alright on their games? SWP in bookies would amaze me if it was put onto the terminals. Rest assured the games would be installed super dead. Last thing they want is a load of quiz pros blazing and darting around taking the value.