FOBT's - Why you will never beat them!

Having spent the afternoon idly watching punters play FOBTs, my suggestion would be this...

Bring the FOBT betting maximum back down to a safer limit. For instance, there could be 10GBP per stake maximum as opposed to 100GBP. This would help to slow down losses and keep the spirit of play more in line with the Fruit Machines of today. (To be fair, if you put a tenner in a fruit machine these days you can expect it to evaporate in a a minute or so if you happen to be unlucky).

So, what we need is a reversal of the current legislation.... Much as s***k has been categorised as more potent drug; High Stakes roulette (yes 100GBP per spin is 'high stakes') should be the reserve of casinos where people make a special effort to go betting and enjoy "chance" games in the traditional manner....

I put the word chance in inverted commas because FOBTs do not operate on chance in the traditional sense.

Again, we need to bring in law which curbs casino games on the High Street. The maximum stakes must be lowered, or, we will see another generation abused and exploited.

The bottom line is you cant win. Play roulette the numbers you havent chosen will come in. Play blackjack the dealer will nearly always beat you. Play fruit machine and spent 50 pounds before feature which most of time will pay between 5 and 10 pounds. The FOBTs future is up to the gamblers if enough people stop playing then the bookmakers will get rid of them and our society as a whole will improve. So if anyone is still playing now whatever cash you earn this next year expect to lose at least half and be dejected

I couldn't agree more Daz, things are especially tight and the machine people will be squeezing that 3% they get extra hard. So, if you are still playing FOBTs you can expect to have a tough year - as you say - expect to halve your income.

The only problem, is that we can't expect addicts to make rational choices, if we could we'd say dumb, inane things like "Hey, every individual has the right to choose for themselves, whether or not they play".

Hmm, so why aren't all drugs legal? If every user has the right to choose whether or not they mess their life up, then why bother enforce drug laws? Well, in order to make a more stable society, that's the answer.

We have to draw a line with these machines. I personally don't want several casinos on the high street provoking my attention every time I pop out for a loaf. Don't you agree?

"Hmm, so why aren't all drugs legal? If every user has the right to choose whether or not they mess their life up, then why bother enforce drug laws? Well, in order to make a more stable society, that's the answer."

At the risk of derailing this thread, prohibition doesn't control drugs, or prevent people from harm - all it does is abdicate control of drugs to criminals. If anything, it makes vulnerable people more likely to be exposed to drugs, while maximising the harm by eliminating any quality control checks that would be required if they were produced legally. It's a flagrant violation of the human rights of responsible drug users, and it most certainly does not result in a "more stable society".

So let's consider what would happen if FOBTs were banned: would all the users suddenly stop being problem gamblers? Nope, they'd just take up another form of gambling, such as online casinos - so do we ban those as well? That would be considerably more difficult to accomplish, as it's quite easy to get around things like that on the internet.

I would personally like to see FOBTs and online casinos banned as they are misleading the gambler in what they are actually playing. For example if playing roulette/blackjack at a land based casinos it is based on luck not on what chips are covering numbers or which card the dealer decides to give you to beat you which is what the FOBTs/online casinos do. If you have to keep the FOBTs/online casinos then it should be made much clearer that the result depends on stake and if the machine/online casinos is in a recoup or payout state like the old fashioned pub fruit machine percentage message which has to be on a machine. For myself I got hooked into FOBTs and when I first played I was under the impression it was a genuinely random event not influenced by what I bet. I felt robbed when over time I played I kept losing with 'unlucky events' repeatingly happening. Hence why I stopped considerably poorer and even nearly a year Iater I wont set foot in a bookmakers again because of what I would call 'legalised theft'

In my view all online gambling and FOBT's and any other tyypes of gambling that accept credit cards and which are too esaily accessible should be banned. It would reduce the risk of addiction/pathological gambling and would be better all round. The only 'pro-gambling' voices are those of the operators themselves and governments who mislead the public into thinking that these things are good as they raise taxes. It is all a big lie, most of the public would not care if such businesses were banned, indeed I suspect that were they informed of the truth, most would support a ban.

Jim,

I agree there's a fair comparison to be made between FOBTs and Online Gaming (where stakes are not capped at 100GBP per spin and it's considerably easier to lose hundreds in moments). However.

At the same time, these are wildly different phenomena that have appeared in the last 10 years, and I think FOBTs have an altogether more abhorrent and immoral positioning when compared to online gaming.

You're quite right to say that neither of these mediums are random in the traditional sense. They depend on a 'zero sum game' for the operators where there can be no "freak wins" for the punter. Every payout is licensed first by the central gaming operators' processor.

However, I do think, we as a society, have rules and limits, such as in the drug world - that if not solving every drug problem, at least define what we would call an acceptable use of substances, and at the same time express a distaste to anything which goes 'beyond the pale' to the point of exploiting the vulnerable and the addicted.

I agree we can't have a silver-bullet for all the vices in society, but it is up to the regulators to set reasonable limits - and this is what they have singularly failed at doing in the last 10 years.

Finally, I would point out it is far easier to self-exclude from the internet gaming world over the 'real world', by virtue of needing an accepted credit card to credit your accounts. But also, bookmakers have a far more pervasive and nagging influence on a far wider cross-section of society. Whereas on the internet one can choose not to accept emails from bookies or visit their sites, on the streets of Britain you are urged constantly to play the machines. This state of affairs needs to change....

It's useless asking for a complete ban on internet gaming or FOBTs, they simply bring in too much revenue for the government, from here and abroad, (see smoking debate for the last 30 years), but there is a duty for the government to set detailed limits on what is acceptable - and here they have got it wrong.

I think that online casinos are at least as destructive as FOBT's in as much as online access is availble 24 hour a day by computer, telephone and even soon by televsion. I think I understand your personal experience with FOBT's is affecting your views, but there is a bigger picture of the expansion of gambling in general over the past 10 years, courtesy of the current government and operators.

You're quite right to say that neither of these mediums are random in the traditional sense. They depend on a 'zero sum game' for the operators where there can be no "freak wins" for the punter. Every payout is licensed first by the central gaming operators' processor.

I don't think this is true in the case of most online casinos. There's more money to be made by generating "fair" random numbers than by cheating, and they're certainly not worried about any freak wins by punters - the house edge ensures that they bring in more than enough money from losers to pay the occasional winner, and the winner will often end up feeding the winnings back into it anyway.

I do agree that the government has a responsibility to do what it can to protect vulnerable people from their addictions - however, there are always practicalities to consider and I don't think a ban on FOBTs would solve anything.

Jim - if there was a ban on FOBT's and online gambling and indeed any other similar forms of addictive gambling where lives can be destroyed very quickly waht would be the down side of such a ban? All the nonsense that the companies would go offshore and become unregulated is just nonsense, there are technological means available to block ISP's etc and advertising, the costs of doing so (blocking ISp's blocking card transactions) would be more than outweighed by the benefits (health/family breakdown/crime/bad debts etc) caused by out of control gambling.

The main downside of a ban on anything at all is that it ruins it for the majority of people who use it responsibly. Also, it doesn't address the underlying causes of why people are misusing it, and they'll just end up displacing their addiction with another vice.

I see why you are saying that but I disagree with it. There is no such thing as responsible gambling, unless there are also responsible operators and regulators. Allowing a system where lives can be destroyed in a very short time and in a climate where gambling is actively encouraged without limit is not responsible. In the same way that the public are prevented causing harm to each other they should also be prevented from causing harm to themselves especially where pathological gambling is now a recognised medical illness. Perhaps all those who have been harmed as a result of such availablilty of such high risk addictive and irresponsible gambling and as a result have suffered should form a lawsuit aginst the government, operators and lobbyists for the damage to health (as well as financial damage) which arises. In the same way that mot all cigarette smokers develop cancer, not all gamblers become pathological. But for those who do and in circumstances where no responsible restrictions are in place, those really responsible (the operators and government) should be accountable for such damage where they have irresponsibly encouraged it and have misleadingly downplay the risks. Pathological gambling is a health issue and should be treated as health problem - this means the cause needs to be addressed and prevention of harm put at the top of the list.

One thing I would support is making it illegal for online gambling services to accept credit cards, as is the case in UK land-based casinos. It wouldn't stop people entirely - they'd be able to withdraw the cash on their credit card and deposit it into their bank account - but it would make it less easy to lose huge sums of money in a short time.

Stopping the use of credit cards sounds like a brilliant idea. It's so easy to empty a credit card compared with hard currency. And by definition this is expensive way of getting into debt -- most card companies charge for cash handling on top of the interest charge.

I accept I have a personal gripe with FOBT, but I've been gambling for about 15 years on and off, and I've tried most of the available mediums. There is something particularly distasteful about these machines, because of the immediacy, prevalence, and accessibility of the machines. To expand:

They offer an immediacy that one only used to experience in a physical casino - the money is there up front - as opposed to online where the money transfers take days. And the speed of the wins and losses matches those in the casino.

They are available to all: Not all members of society have credit cards and internet access - and it could be said that one has to make a special effort to gamble in the online medium. FOBTs bring casino action to every high street.

FOBTs are a special case where the flood gates have been thrown open, and it's quite right that we think about making legal moves against the operators and the government.

// There is a philosophical distinction between the kind of randomness on offer through online and FOBTs and those found in racing and casino action - and this new form of "chance" re categorizes the machine operators as existing outside the current gambling legislation. Therefore we need an immediate cessation of this part of their business while we look again at the rules.

'FOBTs are a special case where the flood gates have been thrown open, and it's quite right that we think about making legal moves against the operators and the government'.

I wish this could be possible but i can't see anyway of doing that. The GC are not interested and as the gambling act stands the fobts are lawful. The best way of combating FOBTs is to put the truth out there for the public to read and make their own decisions to play or not. I still believe in the future the bookmakers have sold out their customers by letting vulnerable gamblers lose everything. Which in turn will give them less custom as gamblers hit rock bottom and hopefully stop gambling and get life back to normality. The flaw with FOBTs from the bookmakers point of view as when people cut down or stop playing there is less money taken in which means less money will be paid out which long term will lose them more custom as players see even less value in them. Already players are overall playing lower stakes and willing to lose less money than say a couple of years ago as people are becoming wise to the FOBTs. Also some controlled gamblers are more willing to take a loss than go 'all in' . All in all few years down the line the bookmakers will regret having them and be in the same position as the 'pub fruit machine operators' where people have become wiser to them and less willing to play.