UK Minister for Culture, Media & Sports Tracey Crouch has expressed her surprise at the Association of British Bookmakers boycott of last week’s “Commons All Party Group on Fixed-odds Betting Terminals (FOBTs)”.
The meeting was staged to discuss the current UK regulatory provisions for FOBTS, with further plans to restrict TV advertising for gambling and sports betting services and products. The review succeeds the fixed odds machines were judge as gambling’s “crack cocaine”. Activists have asked for longtime about the maximum stakes, suggesting that on these machines the bets must be reduced from £100 to £2.
Crouch claims the industry body has “missed an opportunity” to express its concerns in regard to changes in UK gambling legislation. UK Gambling Commission Chief Executive, Sarah Harrison and Labour MP Carolyn Harris, who preside the committee, also supported her concerns. Crouch explains the purpose of the review is to look closely “at the issue of sub-category B2 gaming machines and specific concerns about the harm they cause be that to the players themselves or the local communities in which they are located”.
The ABB responded saying: “We see no value in providing evidence to a group when the outcome of its inquiry has been pre-determined and it operates as little more than a kangaroo court. “The All Party Group is a club of anti-betting shop MPs, funded by amusement arcades and casinos with commercial interest in attacking betting shops.”
Bookmakers accepted and even welcomed the review of the machines. Nonetheless, Malcolm George of the ABB says: “It’s very easy for the anti-gambling lobby to make strong false claims about the industry.” It seems that the ABB failed in the attendance to the meeting, due to the assumption that the governments review into FOBTs and industry advertising and marketing standards will reach no new conclusions.
