BULK SMS

21 February, 2016

Mesmerising Horror Of Watching A Middle-Class Accountant Lose £3,000 In An Hour On Crack Cocaine Gambling Machines


Welcome to modern-day Britain's betting shops. Once these were grubby, down-at-heel outlets, housing little more than tatty betting slips, stubby pencils and endless horseracing. 

Today they have been transformed into glass and shiny steel emporiums where football and horseracing have declined in favour of the new scourge of Britain's burgeoning gambling addiction: Fixed Odds Betting Terminals. 

Bookmakers across Britain house almost 35,000 of these FOBTs, which made a whopping profit of £1.7 billion for companies such as Paddy Power, Ladbrokes, Coral and William Hill from October 2013 to March 2015 (compared to the £1.4 billion that football, dog and horseracing raise altogether). 

This week, two of the largest bookmakers, William Hill and Ladbrokes, are set to announce that for the first time each FOBT machine is pulling in £1,000 a week , the first time it has reached four figures.

But while the terminals are filling the coffers of the gambling industry, it is spelling misery for thousands of gambling addicts. 

Pictured is addict Justyn Larcombe with his sons Matthew and Oscar and his now ex-wife Emma.

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