'Crack Cocaine' Machines Help Make Bookies £1.6bn
Try as they might, those opposed to the so-called “crack cocaine of gambling fixed-odds betting terminals in the UK have had little luck getting rid of the machines….and with good reason.
Fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs), on which customers can spend £100 a minute, accounted for 52 per cent of profits for the betting giants in the past year, new figures show, the Daily Mail reported on Monday.
The Gambling Commission revealed that £1.6 billion was lost on the machines – for which there are some 35,000 scattered throughout the UK - in the year to September 2014 – a rise of £45 million on the previous year.
Among the opposition: London’s Mayor, Boris Johnson. He has urged ministers to take action against the fixed-odds terminals claiming that they are “addictive” and “prey on the vulnerable”.
He’s not the only high profile politician to condemn the machines.
On Sunday, Labour mayoral candidate Sadiq Khan said FOBTs were ‘blighting communities and tearing at the fabric of society’.
For their part, some of the bigger bookmakers in England have agreed to reduce advertising of the machines.
- Gilbert Horowitz, Gambling911.com
