Wales Online – An ex-gambling executive has lifted the lid on how the betting industry has put controversial fixed odds terminals in every high street bookies. The games machines, which let punters stake £300 a minute or £18,000 an hour, have been dubbed “the crack cocaine of gambling”.
Last year more than £60m vanished into fixed odds betting terminals in Wales. They are commonly used to play roulette and were introduced to Britain in 2001. “Everyone in the industry thought we would get all these casino high-rollers using these machines,” said Adrian Parkinson, a former regional manager for Tote who covered Wales. But once they were put in shops “these supposed high-rollers” began asking staff to ban them.
“We did not know why,” Adrian said. “Then we found out they were not high-rollers but problem gamblers.” He estimated one Newport player lost £60,000 in just a few months. One punter Wales on Sunday spoke to recalled watching addicts’ eyes “glaze over” as they stared into the terminals.
“These machines were extinguishing punters’ cash much faster than through over-the-counter betting,” Adrian said. “We realised if we did not replace these customers our income was going was going to decline.” Betting shops began using “aggressive marketing tactics” to get customers on their premises.
“This culminated in having scantily clad girls outside betting shops to get customers in,” said Adrian, but enticing players from outside was frowned upon. “The accepted thing was not to entice people in from the streets into shops,” he said. “But once they came in you could market things to them.” Tote’s board had “a big debate” about whether to do it or not.
“But as soon as Coral did it, Ladbrokes did it and then William Hill and then Betfred. We were sat there as the last bookmaker thinking, ‘Hang on, what do we do?’ I was ordered we had to do it.” Tote, he said, would offer players £50 free credit.
“They would take part in a contest to see who could win the most,” Adrian said. “Whoever got the highest would get a prize, like £50 free credit. We did that to recycle players faster.” Adrian worried under-18s were getting into betting shops because of on-street marketing. “I thought something was seriously wrong,” he said.
Adrian now works for the Campaign for Fairer Gambling (CfFG), which said when FOBTs were introduced they were not regulated or categorised by Government. “The Gaming Board subsequently attempted to take William Hill to court over introducing these gaming machines into betting shops,” the campaign says on its website. Court was avoided when bookies volunteered self-regulation on FOBTs.
“This self-regulation became known as the Code of Practice and, once introduced, bookmakers circumvented these rules by introducing even more casino and roulette games and facilitating debit card transactions from behind the counter in betting shops,” the CfFG said.
“In 2005 when the Gambling Act was going through we were worried the Government was going to take action,” Adrian said. “But the media decided the story of the day was super-casinos. We thought, ‘fantastic’ because FOBTs went under the radar and were legitimised.”
But the pressure is now back on bookies.
