BACTA worries about losing business to FOBTs
In his new role as U.K. Culture Secretary, John Whittingdale, who once called for controversial fixed-odds terminals to be permitted in the country’s bingo halls, also may push to bring the machines to motorways and amusement arcades.
According to the Daily Mirror, the man chosen by Prime Minister David Cameron to head up the Department for Culture, Media and Sport clearly advocated for more FOBTs in a 2013 speech to gaming industry insiders, and also pushed for more lenient rules for high street bookies.
Whittingdale also ridiculed critics who call FOBTs the “crack cocaine of gambling.”
“I’m not so sure they’re even the cannabis of gambling,” he said at a December 2013 meeting of BACTA, the principal trade association for the gaming industry in the U.K.
In recent months, the British government has pledged to rein in FOBTs, which won £1.6 billion from British gamblers in 2013 alone. Anti-FOBT activists say the terminals, which may number more than 30,000 across the country, cause problem gambling and anti-social behavior.
Punters can bet up to £100 every 20 seconds on FOBTs, which feature games such as roulette, blackjack and poker and have a maximum payout of up to £500. There have been repeated calls to reduce the maximum stake from £100 to £2 per spin, to prevent people from losing money too quickly.
“We have a new Conservative majority government and what appears to be a new pro-FOBT Secretary of State in John Whittingdale,” said Adrian Parkinson, spokesman for the Campaign for Fairer Gambling. “As chair of a select committee in 2012, despite the public backlash against FOBTs, he actually supported betting shops being allowed more of them. Then last year he spoke in favor of FOBTs being allowed in other high street gambling premises such as arcades and bingo halls.
“We have to ask the question now,” Parkinson continued. “Has government policy now changed on FOBTs, and under the Tories are we facing a major proliferation of this addictive gambling product?”
FOBTs are currently only allowed in betting shops; the Labor Party had pledged to give local authorities extra powers to restrict their number.
Whittingdale told BACTA members that “the claims of addiction and damage” caused by FOBTs are “unproven. We need empirical evidence that they aren’t as addictive as the anti-FOBT lobby make out. If it is established that FOBTs don’t offer any big danger, I would certainly extend them to adult gaming centers.”
Despite Whittingdale’s seeming support for more FOBTs in their present form, BACTA’s own head of communications said changes are necessary.
“We feel the £100-a-spin stake needs to be dramatically reduced because it is immensely damaging communities,” said Simon Storer. “This is bringing the industry in to disrepute. They need to take the toxicity away, then once that happens we can look again at the situation. Clearly we have lost an awful lot of business to this type of gambling, and it is unacceptable.”
