Time to have an honest debate about the reality of FOBTs
3 min read
Conservative MP Philip Davies believes that the time has come to 'challenge those who seek to peddle untruths' about fixed odds betting terminal and the gambling sector.
It’s time to have an honest debate about the reality of FOBTs
As someone whose parents owned a betting shop as I grew up, I am keen to shatter some of the myths propagated by opponents of gaming machines, who simply twist the truths to meet their pre-determined bias. I have witnessed them resorting to playing the man rather than the ball in their campaign. This includes the claim that I stand up for FOBTs because bookmakers invite me to the races every now and again. If they looked back at my record, they would see that Channel 4 also took me to the races, but this did not stop me giving them a hard time during my time on the DCMS Select Committee, or giving evidence in an employment tribunal against them. These claims are therefore not only untrue, but also irrelevant.
We also hear that FOBTs are the ‘crack cocaine of gambling’ which is another meaningless assertion. Donald Trump actually coined the phrase in the 1980’s when describing video keno games which he saw as a threat to his casinos and every new gambling product since, including online gambling, lottery scratch cards and casinos, have been described as such. Instead of this mindless abuse, it is time to have an honest debate about the facts regarding Fixed Odds Betting Terminals (FOBTs).
Opponents claim that people become addicted to gambling due to FOBTs. Unfortunately, for those who advance the argument, that is simply not supported by evidence. There is no objective evidence from gambling prevalence surveys or Government health surveys that the level of problem gambling in this country is rising. The inconvenient truth is that the level of problem gambling has remained constant at about 0.5% of the population for the past 13 years. Crucially, that level has not increased since FOBTs were first introduced.
Opponents of FOBTs also make completely contradictory criticisms, so on the one hand they claim that people are losing £300 a minute, yet on the other hand they claim that each machine is making £1000 a week profit. I do not dispute that some FOBTs make an estimated £1000 a week in profit. However, if you divide that by the number of hours a bookmaker is open for a week, it amounts to a meagre profit of around £11 an hour. Hardly an excessive profit by anyone’s standards.
Then as they claim that people are losing £300 a minute, they also claim that FOBTs are used for money laundering as they on average return 97% of the player’s stake back to them. Clearly a good product for money laundering cannot by definition be one where you lose lots of money.
Finally, and perhaps the most important fact in this debate is that very few people stake the maximum of £100 on these machines as opponents would have you believe. In fact, only about one in 100 customers stakes over half this amount. Even more interestingly, the average stake on a machine is £5.13 and during an average session lasting 11 minutes, the average loss is £7.
Bookmakers, like my family-run former business have in the past, will continue to be a key part of their local communities, employing thousands of dedicated staff in many of our constituencies across the UK. Instead of denigrating them for offering a legal product which the majority of their customers enjoy responsibly, we should challenge those who seek to peddle untruths surrounding their sector.
Philip Davies is the Conservative MP for Shipley
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