Government regulates stakes on fixed-odds machines

Dubbed the 'crack cocaine' of gambling, the government is to limit the maximum stake on controversial fixed odds betting machines.

The government is set to review fixed-odds betting machines - reducing the maximum stake from £100 to somewhere between £50 and £2 for machines that have a short twenty second gap between every bet. Some campaigners argue that this does not go far enough arguing that the machines have created enormous social harm.

According to an article in the Times (16 October 2017) in a single year, people using fixed odds betting machines lost £1000 or more on 233,071 occasions. The average player has personal debt of £17K.

There are strong arguments that fixed-odds machines have a regressive effect - they tend to be concentrated in the poorest and most deprived areas of the country.