Should fixed odd terminals be banned - the new crack.

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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on June 5, 2014 at 9:45

This has been done to death on here (see Google). Currently local politicians are seeing an excuse for a power grab in they want the ability to stop the actual betting shops opening (actually, any shop). Gambling on the high street was banned a long time ago, one armed bandits, cards, all sorts. The FOBT gets around the legislation that might ban them by cynically exploiting a loophole which states that you cannot bet on an event inside the shop. The FOBTs provide a "view" of a virtual event running on a server somewhere else (maybe even Malta). It's because they allow remote betting on horse races and things like that (which you could not possibly run inside a shop) that you can do this. Very, very cynical.

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