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There’s an interesting piece on FOBTs by Andy Bennett (Racing Post Betting Shop Manager of the Year) on the Post’s website today.
An interesting article.
In it he writes,
That may be the idealistic view of what happens but it is not the reality. Most betting shop punters are there to try and get the big win. Huge returns from their 10p e/w L15. An Agnes Haddock moment.If it was just fun they would just accept losses with phlegmatic resignation – that rarely happens. You only have to see some of the postings on here where a losing bet is anybody else’s fault, usually a "bent" jockey / trainer / owner etc. and never their fault for picking the wrong horse.
Let’s not kid ourselves most punters bet out of greed, hoping to make easy money.
That’s why they sit for hours in front of the FOBT’s. That’s why they don’t walk away after a big win because their greed drives them to want even more.
Luton is a depressed town , it is a mere shadow of the massive employment hub it once was , there are 25 betting shops within a 5 mile radius …does that tell you something
The bookies are making a killing , the poor mugs who play the machines get further and further into debt
Its a shame,…but thats the reality of modern England
does anyone give a care , I doubt it
Ricky
I really have no sympathy for these people. Someone who repeatedly pumps money into a machine and never once questions why they keep loosing, was on downhill slope before they even discovered betting machines. Surely the voice of common sense says that if you are to keep risking, then a little homework is called for. If it wasn’t betting machines, then it would be drugs or alcohol.
But yes I agree, why should these machines take profits from the horse racing industry, they are a product of the gaming age, and should be stopped as these computers offer an instant fix for the addict.
Gambling will never be banned, just like alcohol, or smoking. Why drive something underground and spend money fighting it when they can legally tax it.
Perhaps a cap on high street shops per square mile is in order, as not illustrate an ever increased negative view of betting, due to the clientèle that frequent them.
Horse racing needs publicity, I couldn’t think of anything better than a Dick Francis Novel goes to Hollywood.
AWP and FOBT machines have a guaranteed payout, it is reasonable to state that they also yield a guaranteed profit for their owners. Packets of cigarettes have stark health warnings, alcohol bottles have similar but less severe caveats. Until these FOBT have bold warnings to the effect that playing them in the long run guarantees the players to lose money then the betting shop chains are shirking their social responsibilities.
A sign saying 97.3% guaranteed payout is an enticement, a sign saying 2.7% guaranteed loss is a warning.
You’d need to be heartless not to sympathise with those addicted to anything – or would you?
How many of you expressing sympathy for FOBT addicts feel the same about heroin addicts? An addiction is an addiction, is it not? It sucks up all your cash and ruins your life and the lives of others.
But, as ever, bookmakers are the whipping boys for most, not the addicts. A newcomer to the country reading this thread would probably place bookmakers in the same moral pigeon-hole as pimps and girl-traffickers.
Bookmakers, as Paul says, are astute people running legal businesses. The proliferation of groups of shops is due to the Gambling Act (2005), which became law in September 2007. The Act dispensed with the ‘demand’ criteria. In the past, that criteria meant that a bookmaker applying for a licence within quarter of a mile of another betting shop had to prove that the demand was there.
That requirement went and the main sufferers, arguably, were small independents who found their shops attacked and surrounded by the majors – tough but legal. There is, I think, a social argument in favour of bookmakers being grouped in a certain area of town. There’s a strong belief in the UK that bookies mean criminality (see image 1) and many will be pleased that they choose to corral themselves (not unlike banks, building societies, shoe shops etc, when you think about town centres).
To try and get some context on matters, below are figures from the Gambling Commission’s latest Gambling Prevalence survey (July 2012), and some from the Gamcare website (surprisingly old, 2010/11, but the most recent they have).
All gambling participation (including by remote means) Over the year to June 2012 (that is, an average of figures for September 2011, December 2011, March 2012 and June 2012), 58.1% of the 4,000 adults surveyed said they had participated in at least one form of gambling in the previous four weeks.
This figure of 58.1% compares with the 2011 calendar year figure of 57.3%, the 2010 calendar year figure of 55.5% and the 2009 calendar year figure of 55.2%.
The most popular gambling activity was National Lottery tickets (48.2% of respondents), followed by National Lottery scratchcards (13.1%) and tickets for society or other good cause lotteries (10.3%).
Betting on horse races, private betting with family, friends or colleagues, and gambling on fruit or slot machines were the next most popular activities (4.0%, 3.5% and 3.1% respectively). Those participating in gambling were more likely to be male than female, and were more likely to be aged over 45.
Virtual gaming machines in a bookmaker’s
2.5% (2009)
1.8% (2010)
1.8% (2011)
1.6% (2012)(Slightly off-topic, but an interesting side-note in that more people use FOBTs than betting exchanges)
Betting exchanges
1.1% (2009)
2.1% (2010)
1.4% (2011)
1.3% (2012)You will see that use of FOBTs is falling since 2009.
More than 8 times as many people buy scratchcards as play Virtual Gaming Machines like FOBTs. My uninformed perception of scratchcards, from observing people in newsagents etc, is that they are fairly addictive too; not as much as FOBTs but I’d have guessed they were somewhere in the ballpark. I am wrong, and by some way, judging by the 2010/11 Gamcare figures (see image 2). Of problem gamblers calling Gamcare for help, 2% cited scratchcards against 29% FOBTs.
There’s no doubt there is a problem but the scale of it is probably not at the ‘crack cocaine’ level some would have us believe. It cannot be: only 1.6% of the population play FOBTs.
It could be that of the 0.9% of those in the UK who admit to a gambling problem, many are FOBT users, but it would still make for a comparatively tiny figure. (3% of the population are class A drug addicts and, depending on the criteria used, "more than 3%" of the population are alcohol addicts: source – Independent article) http://www.independent.co.uk/money/spen … 42230.html)
Image 1
http://i1059.photobucket.com/albums/t426/Steeplechasing/image2.jpg
Image 2
http://i1059.photobucket.com/albums/t426/Steeplechasing/image1.jpg
Joe
Joe, as someone who has had diamorphine as a pre-anaesthetic and found the sensation to be one of the most euphoric states of my existence, I can quite easily see why some people would want to experience that feeling again. However, it is said that feeling is never attainable and the addiction is therefore futile, but the addiction remains. I am sure there are people on here that have no sympathy for addicts to anything, but thankfully we do not have to live their lives.
Well i don’t speak without experience, first and second hand.
The group of individuals that consistently put note after note into these machines I have no sympathy for. There are many different forms of addiction, but at what point do they realise that these machines will never pay?
I believe there isn’t one, this is why I have no sympathy for such people. People who have done their bollocks on a calculated decision on the dogs, horses, or even the guy who just did his wages for the last 12 months running on a no limit table. Yes i can feel for them. But to repeatedly play against a software programme that will never pay, is sheer ignorance. This is why I have no sympathy.
It is my firm belief that people who continue to repeatedly loose by way of blind ignorance, will always stay the same. Perhaps a few will learn, but until they all learn, why let this money go to the machine when it can still go the bookie but via the track, which will help support the sport we all love so very much.
Sounds brutal, but I think the logic is there.
The group of individuals that consistently put note after note into these machines I have no sympathy for. There are many different forms of addiction, but at what point do they realise that these machines will never pay?
But to repeatedly play against a software programme that will never pay, is sheer ignorance. This is why I have no sympathy.
It is my firm belief that people who continue to repeatedly lose by way of blind ignorance, will always stay the same.Absolutely right. It really is the misguided triumph of hope over experience if you keep feeding these machines with money. Anyone who keeps putting money into them is asking for trouble and, to be honest, I have got no sympathy for anyone who keeps repeatedly throwing good money after bad, despite all the evidence and experience to the contrary.
Many of the people who feed these machines in betting shops are unemployed and are wasting all their benefit money. Many of the people I see endlessly playing these machines are the ones who are also regularly in court for repeat shoplifting to fund heroin addictions and, increasingly, the new scourge of heavy drinking.
They’ve got no idea how to show moderation and, once they have blown all their benefit money on gambling in betting shops, they then go out shoplifting to steal items to sell to feed their heroin addictions or to raise more money to fritter away on machines.
It’s probably not exaggerating to say that these machines, with their relentless emptying of the pockets who are too weak or stupid to realise they can’t afford it, are fuelling crime such as shoplifting, especially in depressed towns.
It’s a very depressing outlook but because we are supposed now to see these people as "victims" and not feckless, irresponsible, totally selfish and indisciplined, nothing is likely to improve very soon.
Anyone who dares to criticise them or suggests that they should live within their means, show some responsibility, discipline, realism or self-restraint and learn from bad experiences as well as good ones, is automatically branded judgemental, the worst thing anyone can be in today’s "rights", something for nothing and entitlements society.
I gave up my very modest occasional betting at race meetings many years ago because I was often losing and it became very depressing finding myself chasing the losses and losing even more. It was spoiling the day so I made a conscious decision to stop.
I am probably the only person in the country who has never bought a National Lottery ticket because the odds of winning anything worthwhile beyond the occasional £10 are so remote that it doesn’t seem worth it. I wouldn’t even consider putting endless amounts of money into betting shop machines because sheer common sense should tell people that the roulette and other machines are there to make money from mugs and they wouldn’t be there if they were paying out all the time, or paying out more often than they weren’t.Because it isn’t with FOBTs, if FOBTs were completely banned every person that loses on them would lose on something else and something else supported by the government, be it one of the myriad of lotteries, plethora of online gaming sites or just some good old fashioned betting in shops.
We have created a gambling culture, there must be a reason why.
That’s gambling in general. FOBT’s are the problem in betting shops.
And there is no way on this Earth that these machines are random.
And there is no way on this Earth that these machines are random.
They are completely random. I believe regulated under the 2005 Gambling Act.
The great thing about these machines from a bookmakers point of view is that they don’t
need
to be fiddled in any way. They genuinely do offer a 97% payout – the endless degradation of stakes due to the rapid play, along with their psychologically addictive programming combines to make that a 0% return for most players (ie. they play until skint).
Mike
These machines are not like any sports book, where if you are very dedicated and work hard you can find odds that are fairer to you than they should be. That is why I do have sympathy for players (not mugs) who are trying to get out with calculated risk , as so to speak. I know poker players mainly who had a few hard lessons to learn before they found their angle, (not my cup of tea) , also I know one horse player that fell on his face hard, time after time until he learnt to fine tune a few things. But all of these cases were examples of people self educating themselves, always learning and improving.
The proliferation of groups of shops is due to the Gambling Act (2005), which became law in September 2007. The Act dispensed with the ‘demand’ criteria. In the past, that criteria meant that a bookmaker applying for a licence within quarter of a mile of another betting shop had to prove that the demand was there.
That requirement went and the main sufferers, arguably, were small independents who found their shops attacked and surrounded by the majors – tough but legal. There is, I think, a social argument in favour of bookmakers being grouped in a certain area of town.Very interesting information. Thanks very much, Joe.
I remember years ago, one of the major bookmakers which had one of only two betting shops in a small market town objected very vociferously in just this way to the manager of its shop deciding to set up his own rival shop just down the road.
The big firm objected during a hearing at the local magistrates’ court that there was no demand for another shop in such a small area and that, because the two shops would in effect be competing supposedly for the same business, allowing him a bookmaking licence would be unfair. He fought his corner, presented his case, the objections were overruled and he was granted a bookmaker’s licence.
He ran his own independent shop successfully for quite some time, predictably taking some of his best customers, who were also friends, with him.
Eventually, the big firm bought him out and reinstalled him back at his old shop as manager. He no doubt thought he had scored a bit of a coup, getting a windfall by having his business bought out and still having a manager’s job.
But the big firm ultimately did the dirty on him by getting rid of him just before the end of the period which would have qualified him for a decent redundancy payment. A dirty trick in some ways and no doubt an act of revenge for taking them on in the first place but no doubt many would say it was a business decision so that’s all right.
Contrast that situation where a firm objected to just one more shop with the lifeless city centre square I mentioned earlier where there are three betting shops all next door to each other, with two more opposite.
The relaxation of the rules has allowed this but has also created a soulless, free-for-all ghetto which is a sad indictment of the present system.Many of the people who feed these machines in betting shops are unemployed and are wasting all their benefit money. Many of the people I see endlessly playing these machines are the ones who are also regularly in court for repeat shoplifting to fund heroin addictions and, increasingly, the new scourge of heavy drinking.
They’ve got no idea how to show moderation and, once they have blown all their benefit money on gambling in betting shops, they then go out shoplifting to steal items to sell to feed their heroin addictions or to raise more money to fritter away on machines..Mark Prescott, one of the more realistic purveyors of betting fodder, once said ( words to the effect) ‘betting is a recycling of dole money, I supply the misery’
You do seem to live in an idealistic and naiive world Crustylad and if I didn’t know better I’d assume you were that ultimate oxymoron: the wise teenager
It’s an ill wind that blows no one any good, and bookmakers have always thrived in recessions/depressions/hard times
FOBT’s make the thrive simpler, that’s all
You can claim they are random as the book says but when I popped in one day and saw a man playing the Roulette with the last 4 numbers being
0
I refuse to believe they are random.
Many of the people who feed these machines in betting shops are unemployed and are wasting all their benefit money. Many of the people I see endlessly playing these machines are the ones who are also regularly in court for repeat shoplifting to fund heroin addictions and, increasingly, the new scourge of heavy drinking.
They’ve got no idea how to show moderation and, once they have blown all their benefit money on gambling in betting shops, they then go out shoplifting to steal items to sell to feed their heroin addictions or to raise more money to fritter away on machines..Mark Prescott, one of the more realistic purveyors of betting fodder, once said ( words to the effect) ‘betting is a recycling of dole money, I supply the misery’
It’s an ill wind that blows no one any good, and bookmakers have always thrived in recessions/depressions/hard timesVery good way of looking at it, Drone. Sir Mark’s point that ‘betting is a recycling of dole money, I supply the misery’ is a very powerful image and one that is echoed in what I see, day in and day out.
The total absence of any common sense, self-knowledge and sense of restraint, responsibility and hope is what makes it all so depressing.
No doubt they are recklessly hoping that they can buy their way out of their misery with some elixir solution of a quick fix without realising that, with the odds so relentlessly stacked against them, they are actually making things so very much worse by needlessly throwing away what little they have for no gain at all.
Even if they do very occasionally win, they go and throw it all away by not knowing when to stop and squandering it all again.
I am reminded that the Lottery has been called the opium of the people. I suppose it could just as easily be applied to mindless gambling on fruit machines or FOBTs, not to mention horse racing and virtual racing in betting shops.
It’s a sorry tale but the sheer number of betting opportunities and their more widespread availability is doing so much damage.
Meanwhile, the bookmakers, who are providing all these pernicious opportunities, really are thriving. It really is an ill wind that blows nobody any good…You can claim they are random as the book says but when I popped in one day and saw a man playing the Roulette with the last 4 numbers being
0
I refuse to believe they are random.
I don’t ‘claim’ they are random, they
are
random and are regulated to be so. What you choose to believe is irrelevant.
There was a thread started on FOBT’s in the Mail online (I think) where a number of correspondents pointed out sequences such as yours as ‘proof’ the machines were fixed.
This is all a psychological trick caused by the brain’s desire to create order from a chaotic situation. As such, in any run of random numbers, a sequence such as 21-21-21-21 or 1-2-3-4 will always stand out. However, were I to create my own sequence, say 16-37-22-9, this too would occur in the fullness of time but unless someone was specifically looking for such a sequence it would go unnoticed. There is no difference between the three examples given apart from the non-linear form of the third group. This is why you never hear players saying “It’s all fixed, I had a run of 16-37-22-9”.
In fact, the only thing unusual about a sequence of four 0’s is how incredibly unusual (nigh on impossible in fact) it would be if it
never
occurred.
Mike
Spot on Betlarge
There’s been several references to ‘ignorance’ on this thread
Successive governments have buggered around no end with the secondary school curriculum. I would like to think – though don’t believe – that the study of probability and chance has been elevated to the core of the maths curriculum from Year 1; hence reducing ignorance and permitting yer FOBT player to at least play the game with eyes half open rather than tight shut
Probability and matters of chance – and the bookmakers know this – are largely counter-intuitive, epitomised by these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_conceit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_averages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martingale … _system%29
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