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I'm not convinced they will move onto different forms of gambling actually. The issue is the impulsive nature of the bets made on those machines - punters know in a second whether they've won or lost £200. That is the problem it is hoped this issue solves, not gambling addiction. I suspect...

As I said earlier, reducing the stakes makes it easier to force adults to take responsibility. If you have a compulsive personality, you can lose £500 in a matter of seconds as things stand. Yes, it's their fault but I'd rather the state made it more difficult to do. At least with low stakes...

That doesn't really work as an analogy because a) betting shops will still make most of their money from betting with or without FOBTs and b) coffee shops don't sell any single product with the addictive capabilities crack cocaine (and potential to destroy lives of the vulnerable) which could...

Yes, there's nothing wrong with them in that respect - except for the incredibly shit muglet odds of course.

You might indeed lose out, although that assumes expected value actually decreases. It might not of course, competition might still drive it upwards. Personally I'd like to see it becoming a legal requirement for the EV to be clearly displayed for 5 seconds before a game starts. That would...

All these "we'll see"s. Well obviously. But clearly something needed to be done because these things make it all too easy for problem gamblers to ruin their lives. These restrictions are not a magic bullet but they can't really do much harm. You started off by saying the real loser is the...

Disagree. If a shop is only making money because of the existence of FOBTs then it probably ought not to be a going concern. It is likely to be the clustered ones that go - the ones talked about earlier in this thread. It may hoover up a few of the non-town centre shops but obviously if that...

Some of this doesn't stand up to scrutiny in my view. Firstly, this idea of betting shops being social hubs for one - there are certainly a handful of punters who treat them as such, but linking social mixing to a gambling outlet is surely not healthy. Regardless, the FOBT changes won't...

There will. Most shops make most of their money because of the vulnerable sad sacks who sit on the FOBTs pouring money they can ill afford into them. This. Redhill has THREE Corals, two of them are about 10 doors apart and the other one is less than 60 seconds away. It is unbelieve. On top...