Fruit Machine Chat

Taken from Coin Op...

BACTA’s Leslie MacLeod Miller was quoted in The Daily Mail today backing a reduction in stakes for FOBTs, as it was revealed that gamblers spent a staggering £46billion on the terminals in the last year– nearly 50 per cent up in four years. He said: ‘The amusement industry supports social responsibility’ – Mr. MacLeod-Miller had last week told delegates to look out for a Daily Mail report in this week’s papers.

The Gambling Commission figures released today show that bookmakers made profits of £1.55billion from the terminals between April 2012 and March 2013. It also found that more than 600,000 children were either stopped in – or trying to enter – betting shops last year, six times as many as in 2009.

The House of Commons will vote today on whether to reduce the stakes and prizes from the fixed-odds machines. ‘They’re a menace to every high street,’ Tom Watson, a leading Labour MP told The Daily Mail.

“The Government has it in their power to act. We hope to persuade them this is now an urgent matter. David Cameron has voiced his concern about the damaging affects of these high stake machines.

‘MPs have the opportunity to send a clear signal that they expect ministers to take a precautionary approach by lowering the stake values from £100 to £2 on this category of machines.’

The Gambling Commission figures show bookmakers typically take a profit of around 3.4 per cent from B2 machines.

The vote puts the Liberal Democrats in an awkward position. The party has repeatedly raised concerns about the spread of fixed-odds terminals but Nick Clegg’s MPs are set to nod through the plans while a review on the potential harm is completed. That is not due to report until next autumn.

Lib Dem culture spokesman John Leech MP said: ‘We will not be lectured on fixed-odds betting machines by Labour. It was Labour who introduced these highly damaging and addictive gaming machines that have wreaked so much damage to people’s lives, in the face of Liberal Democrat warnings.’

The Gambling Commission report reveals chilling evidence about the rise of problem gambling.

The number of people who have ‘self-excluded’ themselves from betting shops because they can’t trust themselves to bet responsibly, has doubled over the past four years from 11,424 to 22,485.

Some 588,000 under-18s were stopped when they tried to enter a betting shop last year and a further 27,000 were challenged once they had placed a bet. In 2009, just 109,000 underage gamblers were accosted.

Ministers have come under pressure from the gambling industry to keep the stakes and prizes the same. 
Fixed-odds terminals represent 51 per cent of betting shop profits and 67 per cent of the profits from all betting terminals.

There are more than 33,000 of the machines in betting shops, which are limited to four per outlet.

Yes just realised... Maybe No more doing brains in Pure Pots £20 spins

the most interesting thread in a while.. any news yet on the decision

Would be great news if it happened, but I just don't trust the government to agree to it.

Basically it would make it the same as playing Globe Roulette on an I serve, you can only wager £2 at a time, but if you won from that spin you can bet that amount until you lost it or built it up to £500.

Iserve roulette is a lucrative 88% compensated payout game, how have they even been allowed to pass this off as roulette? I know it says it all in the help screen, but poor Jo Bloggs would just assume he's playing the usual 97%? Roulette.

LBC 97.3 debating about it now if anyone's interested.

AMK wrote:Iserve roulette is a lucrative 88% compensated payout game, how have they even been allowed to pass this off as roulette? I know it says it all in the help screen, but poor Jo Bloggs would just assume he's playing the usual 97%? Roulette.

Yes it's a bad comparison I suppose, but after the initial £2 spin you are playing true roulette.

Keybets would be better

Keybets... Where every segment is an seperate pot playable at £2 a go, leaving the chasing numbers possibilities endless. Can see the "its all fixed" claims as half the wheel has racked up to 200 plus pots.

martdaman wrote:LBC 97.3 debating about it now if anyone's interested.

What a tremendously coincidental frequency. % of 36/37 to one decimal place

ming wrote:the most interesting thread in a while.. any news yet on the decision

yeh voted against changing it.... surprise surprise...

Shame,then maybe bookies could've started taking bets again!!

ob wrote:yeh voted against changing it.... surprise surprise...

Nice to see our Government making decisions that benefit the common man as usual.

Spot on Betch.

They've pushed their traditional product to one side and it may be out of reach should they wish to return to it. All the eggs have gone in the fobt basket and they now know that there will be legislation at some point that will hurt their profits. The government are reluctant to do anything at this moment because should they introduce legislation they will probably not recoup much of the lost revenue in another sector and they are keen to maintain the supposed recovery. The high street bookies know they are partially living on borrowed time because they are now curbing any proposed expansion plans.

As the snowball of opposition to fobt's grows and the evidence against them strenghens, the government will no doubt have to act and it may be wise for the industry to get in first to try and soften the blow for themselves.


Kind Regards, Sir Linesman

redlinesman wrote:Spot on Betch.

They've pushed their traditional product to one side and it may be out of reach should they wish to return to it. All the eggs have gone in the fobt basket and they now know that there will be legislation at some point that will hurt their profits. The government are reluctant to do anything at this moment because should they introduce legislation they will probably not recoup much of the lost revenue in another sector and they are keen to maintain the supposed recovery. The high street bookies know they are partially living on borrowed time because they are now curbing any proposed expansion plans.

As the snowball of opposition to fobt's grows and the evidence against them strenghens, the government will no doubt have to act and it may be wise for the industry to get in first to try and soften the blow for themselves.


Kind Regards, Sir Linesman

One of your better posts.

Yes I am surprised the betting shop chains haven't reacted to the clamour by proposing some sort of counter-offer, a stake reduction to £10 for example. They could probably hold on to that for a good few years as such a measure would still appease the opposition. It is sad to think that the countrys economic growth is largely dependant on degenerate gamblers threading notes into FOBT's but it is an unfortunate reality.

The problem I saw was that max £2 a spin offers a potential maximum return of £72, which isn't very marketable. Sure you could probably lay that out on the next spin and hope to achieve that £500 win a la Globe Roulette (plus with FOBT's the base stake spin will be true roulette and not set at 88% or whatever, where a built in mechanism means one in every 7 spins loses in order to keep the % down), but from an industry perspective it isn't much of a draw for the punters. When roulette terminals first appeared they should have been restricted before the concept was allowed, so ultimately I blame whoever was in charge at the time.

Betting shops are nothing more than digital casinos, being able to spin off £100 every 20 seconds, yet when you approach the counter and try and get even £50 on a horse the staff start panicking and ring head office. A few months back they were on about increasing the number of terminals to 6, I take it that idea has been scrapped, because if it hasn't then fuck the government is all I can say.

The Rt Honourable McStreak of Oscarville-sur-Mer.