Roulette machines in bookies......

fixed odds betting terminals,I think

fixed odds betting terminals

Many thanks mate and do we know the % payout of these machines.

each laddies machine makes roughly a grand a week i think x that by 4 per shop x by there shop estate

no wonder they have dumped horse racing yet the govt ob like to see the vunrables raped every day.

chelters 97.2% return, I agree FOBT;s in shops are evil, but NOT as bad as on-line casinos, they NEVER close and players can loose thousands using credit cards, at least in betting shops you can't have credit card top ups.

signed.    cant believe there are not many many more people signing this.  if we all tell people about this maybe we can make a difference.

i had a brief go on them before i realised that they are a total mugs game what i noticed is that either colour can come out about 10 times ie red x 10 spins off the belt surely the law of averages says that wouldnt happen on a real roulette wheel ??

Has a roulette ball got a memory???

I hadnt really thought about this problem as aint been in a bookies for God knows how long,so was unaware of the scale of the problem.

Yes something should be done to protect the vulnerable,I will sign the petition.

It does not really matter about % when your hooked.
I ran clubs with the old style fruit machine and had on the highest payout and took machine takings that were out of this world.

The thing that gets to me is how the bookies have the gov in their pockets.

When the Fixed Odds machines came I out I tried to put them in my clubs to try to stay with the bookies but they were the only ones allowed by law to have them.

They got a two year start which crippled the trade and were finally allowed them but far too late.

I do think they are the crack coke of the machine industry

Hey???

Clubs are not allowed them are they???

Signed - the petition closes on 22/09/12, so if you want to give these horrible companies a problem, sign asap, imo...

The snooker halls had to wait even though we had bigger machine payouts before them.
We had to stick with the old style fruit machines 25p a spin instead of £100 a spin

if we can get 100,000 signatures this topic will be debated in the House of Commons which will surley be a good thing.  so come on everybody, tell ur aunt, uncle, cousin, brother, sister, mother, father and anyone else you know to sign

The hardest thing now is getting paid out in a bookies.

They seem to want to keep the cash for the machine players.

I got sent around four shops to collect a £600 payout Ladcrookes jokers

As for a petition good luck but its worth too much money now I cannot see what they will do

In my opinion the lottery was the start of the problems long before these machines appeared

If the machines were taken out the bookies who many jobs would be lost as the concensus seems to be the bookies dont want to take racing bets in the shops and are only their for mug punters and machine addicts.

telestar, i agree it will be neigh on impossible to do anything but surley trying is better than doing nothing. i know quite a few people who's lives have been affected by these dreadful machines and hopefully we can at least try and make a difference.

my friend started work for corals recently, she was sent on a FOBT course to learn which games make more money for the company and how to get customers onto them games.....

they were told to walk the shop and show customers key bet roulette and tell them to play that rather than normall roulette, the 'machines manager' said if all roulette players swaped over to key bet roulette corals would make an extra 100k a week based on the % payouts.

no training has been offered on bets/rules or customer service ect.

Closing date for the petition is 22/09/2012 so it's a massive ask but don't forget......

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/

for those not aware, high street gamble ch 4 dispatches monday 8pm should be worth watching.

I reckon Canute was a shorter price to succeed.

Might be worth e-mailing the Daily Mail and get them on side for the petition...

Agree with you dancingbravethebest and they are ruining lives.

I am out of the industry now so it has no bearing.

I have had a go on these machines and in the old days I could go and spend a day in the bookies up down up down and lose a couple of hundred

You can do the same on these machines and lose the money in two minutes or lose ten times the amount over the day.

I have never played anything so addictive and have warned family members who have small football weekender wagers never to go near them knowing how easy it is is to get involved a few pounds turn to hundreds and so on.

Good Luck

Im afraid i agree with banks mores the pity.

Good idea Steak, worth a try. Maybe if a few of us bombard them with e-mails and letters they may get on side and help us get to the magic 100,000

sorry, Stake

We need a co-ordinated campaign, maybe off the back of the Ch4 documentary tomorrow?

Tabloids, facebook and twitter...

For what it's worth I reckon that it would be better to campaign for changes in stakes and prizes/speed of play etc as this may be an achievable route to get some degree of change.

You only have to look at the recent politcal history in terms of gambling policy etc to see that major restrictive change is really not on the horizon. Even the Select Committee recommended that they should be able to have more machines!

Come on stakey baby lets do this

its the FOBT comps i dont like, they are told to target 'non players' i.e the young lads who just put on a footie coupon on a saturday.
tempt them in with a free play and a chance to win £25-£50 in the comp, show them roulette and bingo another customer doing there wages every week.

the 'machines ,manager' would argue that nobody is forcing them to play it after the comp (which is right) but by encourging them to play in the comp and showing them new games its making it more likely they will return and play with there own money in the future.

try also 38 degrees who run very successful petition campaigns.. in fact will email them myself.

so the old govenment rightly get the blame for being too lax..and now at least admit responsibilty.

while the new government with evidence to see before their mince pies that they are a hugely dangerous
Class A gambling addiction ruining many thousands of lives

and what do the tories do...Encourage it!!!!   expand machine shops numbers..SHAME ON THE GOVERNMENT

Not sure the government will be that bothered about punters being able to get on minimum amounts, as this doesn't affect hardly any % of the population..however, the misery that FOBTs are causing to many, and the blight on the town landscape (not to mention the additional criminality which is being fueled)...well that is a different matter altogether...

Good idea Nightfly

Signed

Whilst am here...

Shop staff seen blithley playing machines in their own shops

they even locked me out of a corals 8.45pm so they could carry on playing..also hills shop in windsor
staff nonchantly playing machines in mid afternoon..amazing! thought that was strictly off limits for staff!!

Have e-mailed Daily Mail, will let you know what their reply is.

staff are not allowed to play in there own shop or with the company anywhere, i know of 3 staff nearby that have been sacked for playing the fobts ( with the shops money )
none have been prosecuted but have been sacked

Nightfly that will be the free play toury i would of thought they are bored shyteless

Ain't got a clue how it all works and what good it'll do but I've just put a link to the Daily Mail article on Twitter.

Well done lads.

Exactly, the public don't feel they have a duty of care about Tim the selective better who can't get his careful e/w bet on first thing on a Sat morning, but do care about John who blows his wages on a Friday in 20 minutes on a machine.

The machines are not going to be banned anytime soon, but attempts should be made were people preselect how much they were willing to lose and how long they are willing to play for to stop people chasing losses. It's a bit nanny state but people have to be protected from themselves sometimes.

well free play tourny or not OK...

but it doesnt look very good to punters coming in..we all get bored to some extent doing our jobs...and in any
other area i will stick up for staff and have been a staff rep in my work places and will always take on employer
arrogance or breaking rules etc.

i also am pretty relaxed and easy going ..but free tourny or not.... it does give off a poor impression and also leaves
the visting punter suspicious that they may be gambling on the wretched things

In a world that has become customer super sensitive. i dont think staff should be on the machines in any shape or form.

This is a really intelligent and inciteful debate. Thanks everyone for that. I have been a gambler for 30 years but I am in control of it these days so I will never be a victim of these FOBTs.
When I go into a bookies, I do not understand how people just plough their cash into these machines....then they come back for more. My main issue is that they have killed the betting shop atmosphere of old. They are cold dull places now....you sense the misery and unhappiness.
I just bet on BF these days. Because of the type of bets I do, I struggle to lose any cash.

GOOD LUCK TO EVERYONE WHO STRUGGLES WITH THEIR GAMBLING!!! TRY JUST HAVING A FEW SMALL BETS ON HERE....YOU STILL GET A BIT OF A BUZZ BUT YOU SHOULDNT LOSE TOO MUCH....SOUNDS A BIT SIMPLE.

These are the people we need 'lobby'

They need to understand what is happening in betting shops

Member    Party
Mr John Whittingdale (Chair)    Conservative
Dr Thérèse Coffey    Conservative
Damian Collins    Conservative
Philip Davies    Conservative
Paul Farrelly    Labour
Mrs Louise Mensch    Conservative
Steve Rotheram    Labour
Mr Adrian Sanders    Liberal Democrat
Jim Sheridan    Labour
Mr Gerry Sutcliffe    Labour
Mr Tom Watson    Labour

I need more followers - I think

http://twitter.com/lightgreyswan

Signed

Chelsea Girl, do you mean the Philip Davies MP who accepted two days hospiltality at the Cheltenham Festival from Ladbrokes and who is listed in parliamentary records as having accepted benefits worth over £4,000 from a company run by the brother of Fred Done..?

Yes....thats the culprit.

I think we should find a forum candidate to run against him in the next election, imo...

I would but im only on here on a daily basis . . . millhouse gets my vote.

x

Signed,let's blow this out of the water anyway we can,as had been said we gotta expand it out of this forum.
FB,twatter etc..
It can be done in numbers,let's do it.
Don't play em myself but was a victim in the past,truly awful affliction.

have signed both myself and missus

Barry Dennis

chelters 97.2% return, I agree FOBT;s in shops are evil, but NOT as bad as on-line casinos, they NEVER close and players can loose thousands using credit cards, at least in betting shops you can't have credit card top ups.

It's lose ffs Barry - you should know you judging by the way your betting shop went you toby

Have just 'tweeted' Paul Merson with the petition link, he seems to have a few followers.

Must be a few other sports personalities on Twitter that have admitted to gambling problems in the past - perhaps get some of 'em involved eh?

Jeremy Kyle springs to mind.

I said personalities

https://twitter.com/jeremykyletv

Just a couple of stories off a forum.





i havent posted in long time and i did not gamble until 2 weeks ago f... that day i entered bookies and won around £2000 and hell started i ended up playing everyday till today i lost all plus my own money around £1000. it all started again, i think i will never stop playing those **** **** machines i am sick and tired of this stressed again and smashed machines and swore at staff. i hate every f...... bookmaker and their stupid fobts!
today was a last time i entered these crooks no more gambling for me.


Hope everyone is well and staying clear. Can't remember the last time I had a bet or played the killers. Just seems a dark distant memory now. Still can't believe these robbing machines were ever legalised to be put in place on every high street in Britain. The misery they cause is uncalculable. The stupid hours bookies open now beggars belief. I wonder how many holidays they are going to ruin this year :(
Mad.
Stay strong all.
Reply

A return of 97.2%, how does that compare with say horse racing or football betting? Not much different I would say.

The problem is not the return per se, but it's the speed at which you can play and lose that 2.8% that's the problem. I guess with even foreign horse racing piped in you'd be lucky to have more than 60 races a day to bet on, you can probably do 60 spins in 30 minutes I guess. Not many people would bet all 90 matches on a footall coupon. Longer opening hours may play some part as well, sad to see folks playing these at 830 in the morning and 930 at night.

They take horse and football bets I assume on cards too, so that's not the issue either.

I think that people can only lose a certain amount i.e. whatever they have in cash and credit, so would lose this in other ways anyway if they are addicted to gambling, whether it bet machines, arcades, brick and mortar casinos, online casinos, sports betting etc etc etc.

You need to look at why these people gamble full-stop, not just focus on the FOBT's?

Just my thoughts and for context I used to play these and did get 'hooked' but no more than I was 'hooked' on horse racing betting, but haven't played one for at least 5 years now, as rarely ever go in a bookies unless killing 10 mins waiting for an appointment, train etc and then just to browse the papers.

In the ethnic areas the machines are busy 8.30 until 10 at night , yesterday the shop near me which used to 1k slips on a saturday did 500 for only 2k but the four machines had total ins of 10k .

A return of 97.2%, how does that compare with say horse racing or football betting? Not much different I would say.


Average horse margins in shops are probably 5 or 6 times bigger than that.

I agree though that speed of play is the big issue.

Horses and football a betting shop for one of the multiples is going to aim for a margin of 10-11%

For every £1 Ladbrokes take on bets they take £5 on an FOBT.

Speed of play is the issue.

I think there just a big con, last year I was very hooked on them, prob for around four years, im 28 now - a mate of mine said that he was in a bar in london few weeks a go, and one of the waiters said he was a high street bookie ex manager, and he said to stay clear of the machines.
As all four in the shop he worked were linked together to a computer, and its works out a average win, so the  wasters who go in and put £10 in, are just topping the pot up for one person to win a decent amount.... he said stay clear!!
I stick to BF now due to 100% better odds than high st bookies, but its the young lads 18/25 year olds who I see in high st bookies wasting an awful lot of money....

As all four in the shop he worked were linked together to a computer, and its works out a average win, so the  wasters who go in and put £10 in, are just topping the pot up for one person to win a decent amount.... he said stay clear!!

That is absolute nonsense. They are not compensatory.

theref   you are so wrong about that . banks is right

Banks is right that hurt.

pete have you got filthy today??

I don't go near them, so can't blame Labour for any stupidity on my part. You should only use a bookie to watch your horse run when your out, or if you can't get online.

had about six nice races but they keep taking runners out
down to two races now
2.50 mr and 3.25 mr
f uck it just seen 2.50 down to seven so have to leave it today
looked good 1st thing now looks like a day off [:sad:
  good luck to you today  saint

I mean grim 

Cut up bad innit

I can only go by what I was told - and this came from a X HIGH ST BOOKIES MANAGER, maybe I didnt explain what I meant correctly...
but 4 machines are linked to one computer at counter, its like a pot of cash, it then works out when and what to pay....!! hence why they makes £thousands.... I mean the bloke doesnt need to lye???

theref . go and tell that manager he is talking b ollocks

theref, all the machines are linked to an outside company ( global draw ) the only thing they have behind the counter is a 'back office machine' which tells them how much is in each machine, profit and what games have been played ect.....it has nothing to do with when to payout

im a former shop manager for an indie, hills and corals

Banks and Pete are correct but i do find it amusing that the Manager has no idea how they work,the profit % is built into the game so there is no need for them to be ****.

As soon as you press the button the number has been generated,the ball spinning around is only to generate supposed excitement for the player.A winning number flashing on the screen as soon as the start button is pressed would not have the csame addictive effect.

****

wont accept a certain word beginning with r and ending in d.bizarre!

need to keep thread near top to raise awareness and get more signatures

nortons you mean its a bit like irish racing,the run around the track is just to make it more exciting after the winner is pre determined in the weighing room,

for all those enjoying  team gb olympic sucees ,dave moorcroft on the beeb says its purely down to lottery money,so all the compulsive lottery  players take a bow

A tidal wave of support... 148 signiatures

Already hot on the tail of the ban chinese lanterns brigade (152) but some way to go to catch up those who want to block internet porn (163) and save our beloved badgers (182).

What a sad little man you are, clive82...

No, i'm perfectly happy.

Only 99,852 to go, chin up.

Take a look in the mirror, and if you really do work for the bookmaking industry, ask yourself whether encouraging people to gamble money they can't afford to lose really is the best way to spend your time on the planet, imo...

I dont like Clive

He will be happy with that Mr Saint.

He's only on here to wind you all up.. He reminds me of artie..

Artie farty went to a party
All the farts where there
Tooty Fruity let off a beauty
And they all went out for air

Personally i'm not for these machines,butif these machines did dissapear from bookies shops,where and how would they make up on the lost profit margins-surely it would lead to some sort of value being taken away from sports bettors further down the line.Maybe a cap on stakes,or machines to only be in use for general public for a set amount of hours a day,and the money the bookmaking industry pays the goverment from them to be reduced.Under these circumstances These machines would soon become less desireable to play,just a thought that's all.Could be missing something.
One other thing that frustrates me is staff shuting there doors and playing the machines themselves,someone from a rival bookmaker in town going to another bookie acting on a tip of, that a machine  has full payout tubes/or is likely to payout.
Only engineers,and experienced players should have access to this information.

full payout tubes/or is likely to payout

WHAT A LOAD OF B OLLOCKS

pontey21 • August 6, 2012 2:35 PM BST
Personally i'm not for these machines,butif these machines did dissapear from bookies shops,where and how would they make up on the lost profit margins-surely it would lead to some sort of value being taken away from sports bettors further down the line.Maybe a cap on stakes,or machines to only be in use for general public for a set amount of hours a day,and the money the bookmaking industry pays the goverment from them to be reduced.Under these circumstances These machines would soon become less desireable to play,just a thought that's all.Could be missing something.
One other thing that frustrates me is staff shuting there doors and playing the machines themselves,someone from a rival bookmaker in town going to another bookie acting on a tip of, that a machine  has full payout tubes/or is likely to payout.
Only engineers,and experienced players should have access to this information.

They would have to start laying proper bets again instead of being reliant on the income from these rancid machines.

Personally pontey I don't give two hoots about a bookmakers profits. Maybe we should all register as bookmakers, buy the local tobacconist kiosk and stick 4 machines in it

i want to open a shop with just 4 machines and a cut out man.

Pontey21 read my post yours is nonsense regarding payout tubes.

scaredmoney there never be able to take proper bets again on horses,to many traders/arbers,there odds compliers make some terrible mistakes in early pricing,these days we have bog price oddschecker etc.never been so good,+ good databases to look at form.maybe if we were betting at s.p or paid out on a tote like dividend then they might take more heffty wagers.
The people who get the free cups of tea/coffee in bookies are the only ones who can get on big,but there habitual losers.Sad but sign of the times.

not just horses is it...like you say,sad times but if the machines were done away with they would have to look at something else

DancingBraveTheBest
Joined: 01 Sep 08 | Topic/replies: 1,104 | Blogger: DancingBraveTheBest's blog
signed.    cant believe there are not many many more people signing this.  if we all tell people about this maybe we can make a difference.

I've posted the link to this e-petition countless times on here since it first opened.  Just goes to confirm that the majority of people on here blow a load of hot air out of their 4rse and are too lazy to take any action at all against FOBTs...they don't give a **** imo.

or maybe we just think its none of our buisness what other people do with their money,and as your on a betting exchange,betting forum spouting your shoite people may see through the irony,

^ FTP - apart from the high profile cases of match fixing and non-triers please feel free to elaborate on your so called 'irony' and tell me the direct connection between petty crime and betting exchanges.  And while you are at it feel free to find explain how exchanges and FOBTs are the same when it comes to issues including maximum exposure, self exclusion, over aggressive marketing, addiction and the degeneration of British High Streets.  I await your educated response and lack of irony with bated breath.  Cheers.

oive signed

Good man Saint.

well maybe to those who use fobt,fellow gamblers telling them what to do,might sound like the local lord drinking his 2 bottles of burgundy having a pop at the people in the park supping cider