UK government forced to bring forward FOBT stake cut
Ordinary people would lose thousands in minutes on “crack cocaine” machines
The UK government has bowed to pressure from MPs and campaigners to bring forward the implementation date for slashing maximum fixed odds betting terminal (FOBTs) stakes. In a written statement issued this afternoon, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Jeremy Wright announced that FOBT stakes would now be cut to £2 from April 2019.
For years there has been an explosion of criticism against the FOBTs, called also “the crack cocaine machines in gambling” for the way they are operated by high street bookmakers without control or supervision, and where ordinary people would gamble and lose thousands in minutes, as it has a maximum bet of £100 per game, and some machines would play several times per minute.
The previous Minister for Sport and Civil Society Tracey Crouch, resigned after Chancellor Philip Hammond delivered his budget on October 29th, and set out October 2019 as implementation date for reduction on the high limit stakes of £2 to the FOBTs, accusing the government of looking out for the interests of gambling operators over those of the public.
Following Crouch’s resignation, more than 100 MPs signed an amendment to the budget related to FOBTs stake size being cut from that April 2019, and it also emerged, “that up to 12 private parliamentary secretaries were planning to resign their positions in protest at the perceived delay in the cut. This left Hammond in danger of having his Budget bill voted down by the House, which would have seen him become the first Chancellor in 40 years to suffer that ignominy.”
