It seems that on too many occasions, when gamblers in the U.K. lose, they get angry and when they get angry, they might get violent and when they get violent, bookies call the police.
Turns out, government-imposed cuts to the amount of money gamblers can stake on betting machines has led to an almost 40 percent reduction in police calls by bookies last year.
The highest possible bet on fixed-odds betting terminals dropped from £100 (US$124) every 20 seconds to £2, the Guardian said. There were 1,803 calls in 2019, compared with 2,907 the previous year, and that declined only included three months of reduced stake rules.
The figure, obtained under freedom of information, show there were also 23 percent fewer incidents requiring a police presence than in 2017 and less than half of the 4,060 reported in 2016. All of the figures exclude data from one unnamed bookmaker, which used the wrong methodology.
MPs and campaigners said the apparent reduction in calls shows the efforts paid off.
“The direct impact of the FOBT stake cut was always going to be about the reduction of harm to the individual gambler,” said former sports minister Tracey Crouch.
The Gambling Commission said the stakes cut was not the only factor in the decrease calls. Other factors include improved links between shops and the police, falling overall crime rates and a broader fall in the number of betting shops.
The Labour MP Carolyn Harris, who chairs a cross-party group of MPs that campaigned for FOBT reform, said the figures suggested the digital roulette machines had been “driving violence and crime in bookmakers and local communities”.
Figures released earlier this month also showed gamblers were now losing significantly less money on the machines, although some will have migrated to playing other products.
