Missed this news yesterday but how great is that the goverment have finally done something useful.
FOBT Machines will be reduced to £2 max stake.
Thankfully that is 1 aspect of betting I never used, but when I worked in William Hill the amount of people I saw coming in and throwimg hundreds upon hundres of pounds away on them machines was crazy.
Alot of inshop issues are caused by these aswell, people lose big and start hitting the machines, throwing things at them, hopefully with a £2 max stake it will stop alot of people using them.
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Can't see how it will affect the real gambling addicts though, as there are no online limits, so surely they'll just play online instead?
You go into the high street walk into a betfred or William Hill and see how many of these machines have groups of 4/5 people around, these people aint gonna sit around indoors on computers doing it.
Plus online most have deposit limits so before you could walk into a bookies and throw hundreds and hundreds into machines but online normally have a 24 hour deposit limit
An interesting aspect is the demographics of punters: those in-store having a bet on the horses are generally 45 plus; those using the sparkly devices are much younger. Clearly a tactic of these obnoxious companies to suck in more mugs at a younger age. "Ooh, look a shiny thing".
You know you can't win because there's a sign on the front that tells you! And yet still people feed money into these things. On top of that, it's not Vegas is it? I think there's a max payout - is it £500 - so what's the point? Hardly going to be a life-changer is it?
@CAFCsayer if you think being in the sad, down at heel environment of a bookmakers and hurling money into a computer designed to be unable to lose is fun, then I think you need help. https://gamblersanonymous.org.uk/
I am all about the free market and a lack of government intervention but I have zero doubt that this is the right thing to do. If it means a few people lose their jobs, I am fine with that, because the negative aspect of losing a job won't compare to the, in many cases hundreds of thousands of pounds, breakdown of marriages and families that these things cause.
Equally it should improve the quality of people you get in these bookies as so many huddle round a machine to play it can be intimidating.
You see people feeding these machines money like there’s no tomorrow.
I first became aware of the dangers about 10 years ago. A guy in our building (security guard) had been made redundant at a previous job (stock brokers) and got over £100k pay out. Took him less than a year to lose the lot and some. Cost him his house and marriage and his whole life really. He seemed to be addicted to losing as it wouldn’t matter if he was up £2k at any point he’d just carry on until whatever he had was gone.
It’s a shame for those who may lose their jobs but it’s a price worth paying.
Re online that should be next although other than the odd £5 on sky bet for footy I don’t really use it so don’t know what the limits etc are.
Hell will freeze over before I believe bookies and their sob stories. They aren't there for us.
Perhaps the bookies will start taking horse racing bets bigger than £25 quid again, now that the cash cow is on the way out.
Re staffing, a lot of shops are single staffed usually later in the day/evening. This has raised objections by the shop staff union about the safety of staff especially women left alone.
I don't say this very often, but well done to the government.
A few years ago i was on a training course and got talking to a bloke that was sitting next to me who just so happened to work for a bookmakers. He told me that me that they do more transactions on those machines than the London Stock Exchange.
There's a fair few mind-blowing facts here: https://theguardian.com/society/2017/aug/31/uk-gambling-industry-takes-14bn-year-punters
Not the least of which is that 11% of users of these machines are "problem gamblers" and that each machine generates over £50k per year.
The party responsible for liberalising gambling should hang its head in shame.
(Meanwhile the LSE just on mainstream trades turns over £6bn a day with in excess of a staggering €100bn daily on MTS.)
Yes bookmakers will lose profits and yes a few jobs will be lost but that's better than the alternative.
One thing I will say is that it won't solve as much as people hope IMO. Instead of somebody losing a grand in 10 minutes, it will just take them a few hours. Won't stop being losing a lot of money but still a positive move IMO
And yes an addict may find other ways to lose it but there were more than 230,000 occasions last year when players lost more than £1,000 in a session it really does beggar belief. That's someone nipping into their bookies at lunchtime and having 10 spins in three or four minutes and losing a grand - no wonder Coral made so much profit.
They will just have to go back to doing what they are meant to be doing - bookmaking.
Wonder if they'll be dropping the max payout to £10 now the max bet is £2....
If u go into a bookies and watgh these people.on roulette, half the time they dont have know what numbers they are doing just spreading loads of money accross the board.
If they can only.do £2 a spin i think alot fewer people will use them
*GVC owns bwin, Sportingbet, Foxybingo and others as well as Ladbroke/Coral. It will surprise no one to learn that it is HQ'd in the Isle of Man.