“Fractured industry faces mutual suicide” was the headline of a Racing Post article this week. The newspaper of the betting industry, which provides punters with a daily dose of sporting knowledge, was quoting Conservative MP for Shipley Philip Davies, fresh from his address to the bookmakers’ trade show in Wolverhampton.
Davies asserted that I had a “vendetta”, that our campaign was “ferocious” and that I had made FOBTs an issue. True to form, the Racing Post, which relies on advertising revenue from the bookmakers, did not contact me or the Campaign for comment. We have written to Bruce Millington, the Editor, but as with previous correspondence we do not expect anything to be published.
The industry “fractures” are across the betting sector only and are largely a result of the elephant in the room - Fixed Odds Betting Terminals (FOBTs). Independent bookmakers are unhappy with the FOBT-dominated strategy of the corporate operators and are slowly being driven out of business as a consequence of their aggressive and predatory tactics. Independent bookmakers now account for less than 10% of betting shops and have no real voice.
When Davies refers to “mutual suicide” he knows that between the big five operators, William Hill, Ladbrokes, Coral, Betfred and Paddy Power – who own approximately 90% of all betting shops – there is division over - FOBTs - the proposed “pariah” class for betting shops - how to deal with the emerging problem of amusement arcades turning into hybrid betting arcades and even the much hyped advertising watchdog the Senet Group are all issues of division.
As for being “ferocious”, the campaign to reduce the stakes on FOBTs to £2 per spin has been evidence-based with public, parliamentary and media support. Only a small number of backbench MPs including Mr Davies have proffered the opposing libertarian view. It is possible that Mr Davies sees our campaign as a “vendetta”
because he became embroiled in a wrangle with us over our adverts?
FOBTs were an issue long before the Campaign started. After being introduced by the non-regulated betting shop sector around 2001, there has been more than adequate evidence of concerns about the addictive characteristics of the game content and more importantly the high staking capacity. The FOBT research proposed in 2008, which morphed into all category B machine research then re-morphed back into FOBT-only research, will be revealed this December and is a prime example of the concerns held about these machines.
How could one individual persuade Liberal Democrats, Labour, Greens, Scottish Nationalists, the 50 plus councils backing Newham’s call for stake reduction and investigative journalists by “simply making [FOBTs] an issue”? It is the weight of evidence that the Campaign has brought to the table that makes FOBTs an issue.
Using libertarianism to support a protected market monopoly on high-street gambling machines is as unrealistic as the opposite extreme prohibition of gambling. Those who want to argue that gambling is just another service should consider an analogy with financial services.
The libertarian could say “it doesn’t matter which financial product you buy or how it is sold to you because you are spending your money how you want to.” A socially conscientious pragmatist would say that “inappropriate financial products should not be sold to vulnerable persons, so government should intervene and arrange compensation.” Wonga and the PPI miss-selling debacles are prime examples.
Certain financial products are not available to everyone as qualifiers have to be met. Similarly every gambling product is different. The evidence that FOBT gambling is the most addictive form of gambling and generates estimated higher losses from problem gamblers and at-risk gamblers than any other gambling activity is based on statistics from the official British Gambling Prevalence Surveys.
The only suicidal tendency that bookies and their supportive MPs exhibit is the propensity to present weak and easily exposed pro-FOBT positions, whilst hiding or ignoring the
strength of the evidence against FOBTs.