Campaigning is about winning over the public, or harnessing the existing concerns of the public through an organised means of affecting change. When we launched “Stop the FOBTs” in February 2013, our aims were to firstly educate in order to recruit new supporters, and secondly to get an issue that we knew was problematic the attention it deserved from the mainstream media and onto the political agenda.
Fixed odds betting terminals would be a serious problem irrespective of whether our campaign existed. All our campaign has done is broadened those concerns out to a wider base of people. The bookmakers like to imply that we have somehow manufactured this concern through misinformation, and that £100 a spin roulette machines on the high street is nothing to worry about.
However, results of a recent YouGov poll have shown that the public overwhelmingly agrees with the objectives of the campaign – to get the maximum stake reduced to £2 per spin.
70% of those surveyed agreed that there should be extra restrictions on FOBTs, and responses were split evenly among the three main political parties – showing that this issue is above party politics. 73% of respondents believed that the maximum stake of £100 per spin was too high and should be reduced, and 61% supported our objective to reduce the maximum stake to £2.
The overwhelming support for our campaign is a natural consequence of bringing to the public’s attention the issue of fixed odds betting terminals – our support is not manufactured, it is genuine and this polling proves it.
To counter this, and knowing that they cannot rely on organic support, the bookmakers have responded with “astroturfing” campaigns. The term “astroturfing” is derived from the brand of synthetic carpeting designed to look like grass – a play on the term “grassroots”.
Responding to our “
Stop the
FOBTs” campaign, the Association of British Bookmakers launched “Back your local bookie”, which is something of a misnomer when no one has a “local bookie” anymore – in reality we are inundated with clusters of corporate betting shops on our high streets!
In response to the Government’s triennial review of stakes and prizes last year, the “Back your local bookie” campaign submitted just over 9,000 letters to the consultation – roughly the same amount as there are betting shops in Britain.
We had heard numerous reports of area managers coercing shop staff to fill out the template letter to their MP, which created the false perception that the campaign to maintain the £100 stake per spin on FOBTs had grassroots support from the public.
They have recently re-launched “Back your local bookie”, and have set out to gather 100 signatures per shop – hoping to gather one million signatures in support of FOBTs. This will be interesting, as the average betting shop foot flow is generated by fewer than 100 regular individual customers. We might see staff taking the petition out onto the streets, and beyond in order to reach the targets that will inevitably be set for them.
But unless the petition is worded in a way that is deceitful and manipulative, they won’t find much support from their own customers – let alone people in the streets. Which might explain why the text on the petition reads:
“Your right to have a bet and enjoy yourself at your local bookies is under serious threat.. ‘My local bookie is part of my community. I should be able to spend time and money there if I choose, and I don’t support government action that threatens to take away that freedom and also puts jobs at risk’’.”
The sensationalism of the language seems to imply betting shops are about to be banned, when in reality only a stake reduction on FOBTs is being considered – machines that are supposed to be ancillary to a bookmaker’s core business of racing and sports betting.
The desperate tactics of the Association of British Bookmakers were recently compounded by their decision to brief a report “proving that bookmakers don’t target deprived areas” but refusing to release that report to journalists that had requested it. We have discerned that the report, carried out by the Local Data Company, looked specifically at town centres, which might have skewed the outcome of analyses based on the index of multiple deprivation as very few people live in town centres. However, despite our best efforts to get hold of it, we have not been allowed to see it to assess the methodology – and neither has the media!