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In 2016, more than 233,000 users lost more than £1,000 each in a single sitting. It was reported by the UK Gambling Commission that 43% of people who use FOBTs are either problem or at-risk gamblers.
These figures suggest that the number of people affected by FOBT’s are vast, and that indeed any civilized government has a duty of care to the people who are affected by them. Sincerely hope stakes are reduced to two quid.
Nick Rust of course has a duty of care to his stakeholders and must tow the party line on this, although I suspect his personal opinion may differ.
A duty of care to citizens must always be prioritized over the finances of a sport. Racing will just have to make do.
Matthew Lohn’s “dual” role at the BHA was in place long before Nick Rust took over, and in fairness it was Jamie Stier who rejected the perception of bias argument presented by the PJA.
Overall Nick Rust is doing a fine job at the BHA imo.
In 2016, more than 233,000 users lost more than £1,000 each in a single sitting. It was reported by the UK Gambling Commission that 43% of people who use FOBTs are either problem or at-risk gamblers.
That’s some very damning numbers. Crack cocaine dealers as good as, no more, no less. Preying on the weak minded in society, with promises of unatainable riches. It’s a very sad story, one for which LS and the rest of them should hang their heads in shame for.
The machines are a goldmine for them. It’s all so very, very wrong.
“Nick Rust of a course has a duty of care to his stakeholders and must tow the party line on this, although I suspect his personal opinion may differ”.
Don’t know what the evidence is for this, I now it may be hard to believe but some people are actually in favour of the machines and see nothing wrong with them despite having no personal involvement.
I see Nick Rust’s solution to small fields and too much racing is no reduction in fixtures but an increase in the number of owners. He gave no timeframe for this to happen, we could be waiting a long time.
It seems completely the wrong way round to do things to me and a case of the tail wagging the dog.Maybe like suggested above it’s another case of Rust towing the party line against his better judgement.
If it isn’t, his judgement is suspect. If it is, just how much job satisfaction can he be getting?Previously Rust had the benefit of my doubt, however, I now think he believes what he says. He worked for bookmakers from 1987-2015!
Cant remember where I read it, but in an interview Nick Rust gave in the not so distant past, he referred to his wife who suffers from a long term debilitating illness, and how he commutes to work from York to London and back every day to facilitate that situation. Its the mark of a decent man imo.
His job title at the BHA doesn’t contain the word “dictator” so he’s paid to publicly espouse the organisations position on the matter whether he privately disagrees with it or not. It’s the reality of having an employer.
Anyway given the general public’s opposition to FOBT’s as they currently operate, and the wafer thin margins in the opinion polls, political expediency will surely trump what the BHA wants, or lets hope so anyway.
Its high time these dreadful machines were all but put a stop to.
Cant remember where I read it, but in an interview Nick Rust gave in the not so distant past, he referred to his wife who suffers from a long term debilitating illness, and how he commutes to work from York to London and back every day to facilitate that situation. Its the mark of a decent man imo
No wish to demean someone who acts as a carer but would just like to point out that there are a significant number of daily commuters from York to London as the non-stop train service every hour takes a mere 1hr 50mins, which is probably not a lot longer than it takes from the more distant regions on the sarf coast served by the southern networks, which carry a multitude in to and out of London every day
By happy coincidence, Parliament is currently debating the latest chapter of the HS2 white elephant. York and Leeds don’t need it, that’s for sure
MMM FOBT. The very mention of that acronym is the bain of my life. As a betting shop manager of 30+ years standing (long enough to remember when steeplechasing* and his brothers worked for us, us being the red shirts but really everything is now blue), I can easily say these machines are the worst thing ever to hit the betting shops.
They cause so much anti social behaviour, shouting, swearing, wilful damage to the machines, threats to staff because in the mind of the losing customer we flick the lose switch every time they stick their benefits/wages/rent money/money stolen from the wife’s purse into that illuminated slot with the blue lights that swallows £20’s in a futile chase of 27 red.
Bookmakers lost the plot years ago when it comes to these machines. They saw them as a total cash cow. Ripping out whole sections of space previously used to display newspapers with horse racing on them. Racing, that product that a betting shop was actually meant for when they first opened back in the early 1960’s. My employer even tried to circumvent the rule on only 4 machines per shop in one shop in Luton, by building a partition wall with a door in it and obtaining a second licence for through the door. Voila, 8 machines in one shop!!
Now of course staff are “trained” in responsible gambling. We are expected to approach that chap in the suit, or the local drug dealer who has just lost £500 in 20 mins and has started using language a navvy would blush at to ask if he or she is ok. We are then, if not told to mind our own business or eff off, expected to log this on the log on the computer. Does this happen? Does it hell. Every time a machine alert flashes up on screen staff simply click, known customer, no change in behaviour as this means we do not need to physically interact with them.
Then we run machine days, with tournaments where staff are encouraged to demonstrate games to customers with a view to getting them trying the game with a theoretical £100. Idea being customer likes game and then will play with real money. How does that fit with our commitment to responsible gambling? We then get statistics fired back to the shop saying we have only had xx amount of demos, that is way to low, you must do more!! again how can that possibly be responsible gambling.
Honestly I hope the maximum stake is slashed to £2. They say it will close shops, I have my doubts. Most shops still have good numbers of slots players playing at up to £2 a spin. In my previous and current shop slots play outstrips roulette by a fairly decent margin. The senior managers might need to become inventive and actually remember that we are primarily a betting shop, betting on horses and dogs and if they turn their attention to that more people might become interested in racing again, and the shop staff can breathe a collective sigh of relief that the FOBT burden has been mostly removed from their daily life.Great post Meerkat.
Nice to get a perspective of how the “front-line” have to cope on a daily basis.
Agreed, great post Meerkat.
LostSoldier, even the staff despise them. It would seem, the only people who are for them, are the ones making the vast profits from the machines themselves. When you hear of that sort of misery from a betting shop manager, does it not make you think that you are wrong about these poxy machines?
I’ve never played one in my life, I stopped going into betting shops with the advent of online betting. Could someone please tell me, honestly, if they have ever had a good win off of one of these machines? Or even been in a betting shop and seen someone win a substantial lump of cash? If you can lose a grand in next to no time, surely people do actually win money from them, once in a blue moon?
I mostly bet online now vs shop bookies, but when I did bet in shops and won big, 90% of the time the staff member at Hills would walk over and and collect the money from the FOBT machine to settle the bet. Every time they did this I was staggered at how much money they pulled out of there. I would love to know the numbers because I suspect a bookmaker can take bets on horses all day long, and then pay out every winner in that day with what they collect from FOBT.
Outstanding post from Meerkat. A sobering dose of reality for this 1980s betting shop manager who would simply not cope with such awful work.
Mike
People do have winning sessions on FOBTs, as Meerkat would confirm. It’s just the nature of the games that you lose in the long run. If you want to flip a coin heads or tails 100,000 times with me on a muddy field (heads = you win, tails or stuck in the mud on its side = I win), I would happily take that bet for a good chunk of my net worth. It’s a similar thing with bookmakers and their FOBTs – if people are willing to play games where they are 47% against the bookie’s 53% every single spin then sure, come and get it.
Of course nobody playing any type of casino game in any situation is making a good investment (poker not included) but sadly I imagine the typical FOBT player is playing the least optimal strategy to boot. If you have £80 in your pocket, start by betting £10 and then Martingale it to chase your losses, the odds are that you’ll go broke very quickly – probably in under 10 spins, perhaps in as few as 3. If you have £200 in your pocket and bet £2 every spin, you’ll still bleed away, but you’ll probably do it very very slowly over a few days. That’s not exclusive to a FOBT, of course – the same thing applies in online casinos, brick and mortar casinos and fruit machines. It’s a similar thing to racing and general sports betting. We bet to more than 100% – the overround is the theoretical margin.
As I’ve said before, I work for a bookmaker but I’m personally not an ardent supporter of FOBTs. Still I think IF (and, despite recent publicity, the vibes are that it is a big IF) the max FOBT stake is reduced to £2, regulators need to prove that they won’t just be pushing problem gamblers onto the internet or towards other venues. I think that’s what is sticking in the craw for the big dogs in charge of bookmakers. Though responsible regulation of FOBTs would be a good thing for the country (especially the most vulnerable), it perhaps doesn’t go far enough and isn’t entirely fair if just targeted on one sector.
On a separate point, I wonder if the British education system should change its attitude to gambling. We have sex education for all the right reasons – children need to know the facts to develop healthy attitudes and take the right precautions. Instead of avoiding the subject of gambling, perhaps more should be done to teach children about the mathematics]. What are your odds every time you spin the roulette wheel? Why is blackjack a sucker’s game? If you’re all-in with QQ against AK pre-flop, who’s the favourite and why? Many children are cosseted from the subject of gambling until suddenly they find themselves 18 years old, with independence, credit and the legal right to play. Surely it’s crazy to let people loose like that – especially if the big underage cover-up of the gambling world creates allure and mystique.
I have no direct evidence for this, but I’d be willing to bet that most FOBT/online casino/etc addicts did poorly at school and don’t have a GCSE grade C in Maths. It raises an ethical question straight away that people with minimal-to-zero understanding of probability should be able to gamble at all.
On a separate point, I wonder if the British education system should change its attitude to gambling. We have sex education for all the right reasons – children need to know the facts to develop healthy attitudes and take the right precautions. Instead of avoiding the subject of gambling, perhaps more should be done to teach children about the mathematics]. What are your odds every time you spin the roulette wheel? Why is blackjack a sucker’s game? If you’re all-in with QQ against AK pre-flop, who’s the favourite and why? Many children are cosseted from the subject of gambling until suddenly they find themselves 18 years old, with independence, credit and the legal right to play. Surely it’s crazy to let people loose like that – especially if the big underage cover-up of the gambling world creates allure and mystique.
I have no direct evidence for this, but I’d be willing to bet that most FOBT/online casino/etc addicts did poorly at school and don’t have a GCSE grade C in Maths. It raises an ethical question straight away that people with minimal-to-zero understanding of probability should be able to gamble at all.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2011/dec/06/why-not-teach-betting
This must be my ‘Breakfast At Tiffany’s’ moment with Greg Wood. We DO have something in common.
Brilliant post that Meerkat! Straight from the heart from the type of manager who used to work in bookies when I started going in…a passion for the sport and genuinely wanting what’s best for punters!
Would love to know how much ‘dirty’ money is passed through those things?
Don’t go in bookies anymore but my racing mate who I work with does and everything you say is told to me many times…he doesn’t play them but has a go at staff when they do try to promote them and says the staff don’t enjoy pushing them on people but say they are made to!
Or even been in a betting shop and seen someone win a substantial lump of cash? If you can lose a grand in next to no time, surely people do actually win money from them, once in a blue moon?
Quit a couple of years ago now but Biggest ticket I ever paid was a bit over £7k. The guy was definitely well in profit that day but it only goes one way in the end obviously. People have to have good days or they’ll never come back, same as any form of gambling really.
I can vouch for most of the staff experiences here. Going over to some angry bloke cos an alert popped up on the back office screen? Yeah right, I’ll keep my teeth thanks. Can’t afford to have them repaired on this wage anyway. And they surely knew that staff were doing sod all about it. As long as you made it look like you did then that’s all they cared about. I guess they would feed the stats back to the powers that be to try to stave off the inevitable heavier regulation. It seemed to me like they were desperately doing all sorts to make themselves appear more responsible whilst in reality changing very little.
As I think I mentioned before, why should staff be trained to deal with gambling addiction for £10 an hour or less? Whether the firms pay anything more than lip service to the problem these days (as was undoubtedly the case when I left) I don’t know.
Thanks all for the kind words about my previous post.
To address a couple of points raised by various posters purely from my own viewpoint not that of my employer.
Firstly, people do win big, I am obviously not going to go into great specifics here as I do not want my employer to be able to work out who I am, (need the job unfortunately) but, on a given day recently the amount won by customers was approx £3,000 more than the amount inserted and that included at least 3 winning £500 slot jackpots on the one day. To address a second point about amount of cash in the machines, then yes upwards of £5,000 a day would be by no means uncommon on busy days and roughly £2,000 to £2,500 on quieter days. Now as the machines are obviously going to pay out to their percentage over a predetermined number of games, it is not difficult using the probability mentioned in one post above that the days where the payout is £3,000 more than the take in are considerably fewer than the days where the reverse is true. The last figure that I heard for our Gross Win Per Terminal Per Week was before the merger and it was sitting at just over £1,000 per machine.
So that’s 4 machines per shop, winning £1,000 each per week over roughly 1850 shops nationwide.
4000x52x1850 = £384m before the chancellor takes his cut. Not hard to see why the bookies don’t want to lose them.
Couple of quick comments on other points, I have no doubt lots and lots of dirty money goes through these machines. We have a system where we get an alert if for example a customer inserts £300, then plays £2 and collects the £298. We are supposed to withhold payment and refer it to our anti money laundering team. I shall leave you all to guess how often that really happens. As to whether FOBT players didn’t do well at school, I think that is too sweeping a comment to make with all due respect. Many of our FOBT clients are well dressed gents who obviously hold down decent jobs, what I will say though is that it is a proven fact that in areas of social deprivation or large areas of social housing then the number of FOBT machines on the high streets there is much higher than in a leafy affluent suburb. More machines for those at the lower end of society and with greater needs to lose money on than those with high disposable incomes. That cannot be right
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