Published on 17th January 2014 by Becky Mosley

The government has promised to place safeguards on fixed-odds betting in a new pledge, after intense pressure from Labour. The debate in the House of Commons saw Labour demand tough curbs on high street “mini-casinos”, and demanded that measures are taken to protect gamers in a new government review, after say gamers can lose up to £300 in a single minute of gameplay.

High Stakes?

However, it wasn’t all plain sailing for Labour, after the government easily defeated one of their motions, which called for councils to be given the power to limit the number of high-stake fruit machines in operation in the country. Labour lost the debate by 82, with 314 to 232 against the new move.

The high-stakes fruit machines can see players wager up to £100 in just 20 seconds time, with fixed-odds terminals. Pay-outs from the machines can be as much as £500. It doesn’t found sound like a solid investment on the behalf of the gamer, especially when players can win tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of pounds playing the online slots.

Open All Hours

At present, and according the Labour’s stats, there are over 33,000 of the high stakes, fixed-odds fruit machines across the United Kingdom. These machines are thought to make over £1.5 billion per year. The 2005 Gambling Act has placed limits on the terminals, so that betting shops can only house 4 per shop. Labour is insisting that in order to get around these restrictions, bookies are simply opening up more shops.

The vote on the high stakes machines, will see the fixed-odds on them drop from £100 to just £2. The Conservative government has also hit back at Labour, indicating that it was their original laws that allowed the situation to escalate, with Labour commenting that there had been “unforeseen consequences” since the law was introduced in 2001.