When is government intervention warranted?

Gambling “crack cocaine”

As regular readers of my Two Little Fleas column will know – I don’t particularly like governmental interference with the personal liberties of the British people. This is the case whether concerning the gambling industry, alcohol industry, or smoking industry (my three vices, you see). However, this week, there has been one particular call for the government to intervene which I actually agree with. Please take a second to compose yourself from such a shock, reader.

A betting shop owner called Mike Simons has called on the government to ban Fixed Odds Betting Terminals, which are often referred to as the “crack cocaine of gambling”. This was reported earlier this week in Two Little Fleas. Mr Simons, 53, is the first bookmaker who has called on the government to ban them after a punter who lost an excessive amount of money on one of these machines then hung himself and another attempted to commit suicide. Fairly grim stuff, I’m sure you will agree reader.

The newspaper The Sunday People has been campaigning for a while for these machines to have a cap of a maximum £2 stake. Having seen some people over the last couple of years blow hundreds in a matter of minutes, I can’t help but also agree with Mr Simons and The Sunday People.

Mr Simons

Setting caps on the maximum amount that can be wagered on such things, or banning them altogether is not, I don’t believe, unwarranted. They are, after all, not particularly desirable forms of gambling. Indeed, as Mr Simons said:

“They can kill. They’re as bad as the worst kind of drug.

“That’s why they’re called the crack ­cocaine of gambling. People who use them just can’t stop.”

In the article in The Mirror, Mr Simons discusses how he had one customer that blew £8,000.

Now, if someone was to suggest that gambling should be prohibited or the industry unduly singled out for punishment then I would be furious, but setting limits on the amount that can be blown on these machines or losing them altogether is no bad thing, really. I have been going to bookies for decades, and it is only very recently that they have started popping up, and I don’t think it is for the better.

What concerns me slightly about these machines is how utterly addictive they appear. Indeed, it is for this reason that Mr Simons has called for restrictions on them. Speaking of his customer that hung himself, he said that the chap “was very respectable. But he must have lost at least £100,000 on the machines,” before hanging himself.

Mr Simons does not look a dissimilar age to myself, and his bio states that he has been in the gambling industry for just under 40 years, which is not so different to the amount of time I have been betting, and like him, I don’t see the point in rolling these machines out. They don’t seem to serve any purpose, and unlike nearly all forms of gambling, they seem to only bring about misery and beggary.

Should the government intervene with these machines?

By all accounts Mr Simons is not the first bookmaker who has expressed slight alarm at these machines. Reportedly, according to one Adrian Parkinson from the Campaign for Fairer Gambling – many in the industry are privately saying this, too.

When I first read this story on Two Little Fleas, I asked a few friends of a similar age, who have all enjoyed a flutter as much as I have over the years, and they all spoke just as negatively about the emergence of these machines as Mr Simons did. Hopefully soon, the government might actually do something, rather than just unnecessarily and pointlessly attack the gambling industry with higher taxes and new Licencing Acts.