UK bookies demand “urgent inquiry” into MPs’ FOBT report

Britain’s bookies are crying foul over a parliamentary report calling for fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBT) maximum stakes to be reduced from £100 to just £2.

On Monday, the Association of British Bookmakers (ABB) issued a terse press release “demanding an urgent inquiry into a new report” by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) tasked with studying the alleged carnage that FOBTs have wrought on UK society.

The ABB declined to participate in the APPG’s November meeting with industry figures re the FOBT issue, calling the exercise a “kangaroo court.” In December, the APPG publicly declared its desire to see the government order a stake reduction – as well as cutting the current maximum of four FOBTs per shop – as part of the gambling review the government announced last October.

The APPG’s full report is set to be issued on Tuesday, but the ABB wasn’t willing to wait that long. Monday saw the ABB launch a pre-emptive strike against the “deeply flawed” report, which it claimed was funded by “commercial rivals of Britain’s bookmakers” who stand to “directly benefit if [the report’s] recommendations are ever implemented.”