FOBT's Again...

No surprise there, it's the reason bookmakers can offer such good deals on their sports betting these days as they know it will all be gobbled back up by FOBT's. I have witnessed first hand staff offering customers tea/coffee, something to eat for playing the machines but if your in there just betting on the racing you will not get these offers, they want you in there for one reason, to play the FOBT's. Promo's after promo's are displayed over the shops.

I obviously play slots online, but what really frustrates me about these is the fact that you can spin at £2 a pop & only win a maximum of £500 in one spin so the potential is only a 250x stake! They have slots such as Montezuma aswell, which we all know the potential that can have at such a stake, the winnings online would could far exceed £500 for that stake. That's just one example, but it can be far worse, 'Hi-Roller' spins @ £50 a pop for a maximum win of £500? Absolutely crazy.

If the FOBT's gave exactly the same chance of a win as online does, that chance of a 1000x, 2000x wins, then I would say that's fair & I do not see the issue with them. You can just as easily load up online as you can with spending money in shops, if you want to gamble you will gamble, what annoys me most is the fact that with the shop FOBT's you can only ever win £500 from these machines in one go & can never be a fair game.
 
Nope lol!

This sort of thing has been going on for years tho.

When I worked in a land based casino there was all sorts of 'keep em betting' strategies going on by our management, mostly for hi-rollers but sometimes for those who'd show up regular and spend small but often amounts.

Terrible practice IMO but would include:-

* Complimentary drinks (alcoholic and normal)
* Free Meals, including Steaks with 'the works'
* Free Even chance bets with 1x turnover
* Packs of 20 fags
* Free Taxi's to and from the casino
* Complimentary nights out, live shows, horse race meetings, coach always picked up and collected from the casino :rolleyes:
* Free buffet nights
* 'Behind closed doors' cash back for heavier losers

What they are doing now is just a more up to date version but same evil intentions tho!
 
The way these betting companies see it, keeping the highrollers content is their priority. I worked at a casino too and we all knew the new Responsible Gambling regulations were worthless.

We all know casinos and bookies will do anything to keep the punters playing, and they always will. Even if it contravenes the 'spirit' of Responsible Gambling as it was meant to be intended. No different to people that are blatantly hammered still being served at a pub.

But it's still a bit desperate to picture staff in bookies loitering around disheveled broke-ass punters offering to buy them lunch etc.

What next? Offer to pick their kids up after school? Do the weekly shop? Wash their car?? :(
 
Manager: Leaving already Mr Vinyl, another tea perhaps.

Vinyl: No thanks, I had better get going.

Manager: But you are doing so well, here let me refill that FOBT for you personally so that you don't need to wait for the engineer.

Vinyl: Thanks anyway, but I have a couple of things I need to get done before the family gets to my place.

Manager: I can have one of our junior staff help you with your errands, you could double your money in no time if you stay a little longer.

Vinyl: OK, you have convinced me, here's the house key. Tell your staff the Harpic is in the cupboard under the stairs, and my family are very fussy, the bowl needs to be whiter than the driven snow, or I'll be for it.:D
 
....I don't think this will come as a great surprise to many of you...

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Terrible practice IMO

What they are doing now is just a more up to date version but same evil intentions tho!

What next? Offer to pick their kids up after school? Do the weekly shop? Wash their car?? :(


I am going to go out on a limb here and disagree completely with all three of you.

Yes FOBT's are bad, especially when bookmakers are refusing to take straight up sports bets, and they need regulation. However that does not mean offering high rollers, regular customers "perks" is bad.

Frankly as an online casino player I ENJOY getting perks. Be it gifts in the post or bonus deposit offers or whatever. Online casinos cant offer you a free drink, or a free meal, or turn up the heating for you so instead they offer a bonus. When I go to a live casino I expect some sort of comp - free parking/food/drink etc. If I was a big spender I would most definitely expect better treatment. I do not think offering these things to your good customers is bad and in honesty this is a story out of nothing intending to jump on the FOBT bandwagon. You would all complain if you spent hundreds every day at your favourite online casino and got nothing. In fact you would all go elsewhere.


No surprise there, it's the reason bookmakers can offer such good deals on their sports betting these days as they know it will all be gobbled back up by FOBT's.

That is true and annoyingly they do not let people bet on the good sports odds unless they also play the machines at the side. Max £2 or something online unless you are a total mug.

I obviously play slots online, but what really frustrates me about these is the fact that you can spin at £2 a pop & only win a maximum of £500 in one spin so the potential is only a 250x stake! They have slots such as Montezuma aswell, which we all know the potential that can have at such a stake, the winnings online would could far exceed £500 for that stake. That's just one example, but it can be far worse, 'Hi-Roller' spins @ £50 a pop for a maximum win of £500? Absolutely crazy.

If the FOBT's gave exactly the same chance of a win as online does, that chance of a 1000x, 2000x wins, then I would say that's fair & I do not see the issue with them.

It is the regulation limiting the max prize/stake, NOT the bookies. When the machines first came out with no regulation you could win 5 figures per spin of roulette. Believe me if they had their way again it would be as you want.
 
Online casinos cant offer you a free drink, or a free meal, or turn up the heating for you so instead they offer a bonus. When I go to a live casino I expect some sort of comp - free parking/food/drink etc.


Ahh, you forget, there are no tabs in a casino / bookies. For when you get those special 'Spintee' moments :eek:
 
....I don't think this will come as a great surprise to many of you...

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Well at least now in the never ending anti FOBT campaig the BBC is bothering to include that the number of bookies has not increased and that the problem gambling rate is stable since before they were introduced.

Hey before long they will catch up to the way that the sub £2 (B3)bets have worse odds than the hated "up to" £100 stakes (B2) and that the average session loss on the B3 games is higher than the B2 game session.

Beware, once they get their B2 Ban they will be after online play.
 
Well at least now in the never ending anti FOBT campaig the BBC is bothering to include that the number of bookies has not increased and that the problem gambling rate is stable since before they were introduced.

Hey before long they will catch up to the way that the sub £2 (B3)bets have worse odds than the hated "up to" £100 stakes (B2) and that the average session loss on the B3 games is higher than the B2 game session.

Beware, once they get their B2 Ban they will be after online play.

Those £2 machines can eat money VERY fast. They can spin once every couple of seconds, not once every couple of minutes. The TRTP is around 90%. If the FOBTs are offering a fair game of roulette, the TRTP is around the 95%-97% mark, depending on the type of roulette offered.

Even the £100 jackpot fruit machines can go through £100 pretty quickly on £1 bets if I have recently been playing them:D

I had a first the other week, got the £100 JP and it REPEATED:eek:


The supervision of bets greater than £50 will have curbed the higher wagers because players don't want to have to "ask permission", they just want to play. It is likely that whilst £100 bets have fallen, they have been matched by an increase in £50 bets from high rollers who don't want a supervisor breathing down their necks. I would bet lower if I had to ask permission every time I wanted to place a higher bet.


One worrying thing that the BBC has revealed though is the conflict of interest of linking staff pay to the amount lost on FOBTs. This tempts staff to bias towards not noticing out of control gambling because doing the right thing by intervening can cut their pay, and even cause them to fear disciplinary action for "underperformance". Linking pay and bonuses to the hold on FOBTs should be banned outright. If staff are to be rewarded, it should be based on how few instances of "problem gambling" they have in their shop, as this would show they were properly supervising the players.
 
The supervision of bets greater than £50 will have curbed the higher wagers because players don't want to have to "ask permission", they just want to play. It is likely that whilst £100 bets have fallen, they have been matched by an increase in £50 bets from high rollers who don't want a supervisor breathing down their necks. I would bet lower if I had to ask permission every time I wanted to place a higher bet.


One worrying thing that the BBC has revealed though is the conflict of interest of linking staff pay to the amount lost on FOBTs. This tempts staff to bias towards not noticing out of control gambling because doing the right thing by intervening can cut their pay, and even cause them to fear disciplinary action for "underperformance". Linking pay and bonuses to the hold on FOBTs should be banned outright. If staff are to be rewarded, it should be based on how few instances of "problem gambling" they have in their shop, as this would show they were properly supervising the players.

It's true, the worse RTP and higher spin rate means the £2 games eat the cash if anything quicker. As for the £100 bets, before the change for permission or account based betting 1% of sessions started at £100 and 3% of sessions reached £100 at some point. Whilst the £100 was rarely used £50 + did make up about a third of the yield. The interim report on the change with the permission/account based play is exactly as you suggest, a big drop in over £50 bets but a big rise in bets at £50, yield down about 3%

As for the linking of pay to shop turnover - it was BetFred a non ABB bookie that did this, putting half the bonus on shop profitability and half on machine revenue growth. The ABB person did not defend this well as I doubt he wants to slag the last big potential joiner. The other firms the bonus stuff is trivial and not heavily weighted to machine revenue anyway. BetFred have weighted it to machine reveues because they inherited the Tote shops which have identical machines to other bookies but much muh lower revenues per machine. Their FOBTs have underperformed for years, I suspect this still continues as they were the only firm not willing to share their data with the RGT researchers, they did not want the competitors to see how badly they were doing.
 
From my experience from playing these FOBT's on a couple of occasions at £2 a spin, I can attest that they can indeed eat money at an astonishing rate. I wouldn't mind so much, but when you realise the rate at which it eats up and the fact that your max payout is always going to be £500, it really takes the shine off playing them tbh. Personally I think the machines for Slots should be limited to £1 per spin to make the max payout at least that bit more appealing. I couldn't help but play Merlins Millions and think 'I could be playing this at home and probably get a bigger win than I can get here'. I think that's whats really put me off the whole thing. The fact that it eats your money quickly, the max win is limited, you can get more for your money online (or even in the local casino) and quite frankly, it's not really the most amazing atmosphere in the world to lose a chunk of money is it? Let's be honest, I'd much rather be playing say Book of Ra in the nearby Casino, be able to get a beer in a relaxing atmosphere as opposed to nipping into the bookies with a load of tables with betting slips and pens scattered about, unable to grab a beer and hunkered over in what feels like an old school telephone booth.

Thing is though, I can see where the bookies are coming from with their offers of tea etc. Where I used to live we had a place called Casino Slots on the High Street. Nothing fancy. Just a place with a few £500 jackpot machines, the usual Rainbow Riches and a whole array of different Pub Fruities. Whenever I used to pop in I'd always be offered a tea or coffee straight away. Not because I was a high roller or frequent customer. It was just something they did to everyone. It felt nice. It wasn't amazing tea or coffee. Just the standard PG/Nescafe. But it was the gesture that always felt nice. However the way the bookies have done it here though is completely wrong. Using such tactics to encourage people to play and hopefully lose more isn't right and surely goes against the grain of RG. If they were offering it to everyone regardless, that's cool. I'd say that's looking after your punters. But, by only doing it to select punters who you suspect can be tempted to lose even more money is totally wrong. I know it's ultimately up to the player to keep control of their gambling, but to try and entice people to potentially go over that edge just to make a bit more profit? Totally wrong. It's a practice that needs to be stopped. I'd rather stick to online or the Casino.
 
From my experience from playing these FOBT's on a couple of occasions at £2 a spin, I can attest that they can indeed eat money at an astonishing rate. I wouldn't mind so much, but when you realise the rate at which it eats up and the fact that your max payout is always going to be £500, it really takes the shine off playing them tbh. Personally I think the machines for Slots should be limited to £1 per spin to make the max payout at least that bit more appealing. I couldn't help but play Merlins Millions and think 'I could be playing this at home and probably get a bigger win than I can get here'. I think that's whats really put me off the whole thing. The fact that it eats your money quickly, the max win is limited, you can get more for your money online (or even in the local casino) and quite frankly, it's not really the most amazing atmosphere in the world to lose a chunk of money is it? Let's be honest, I'd much rather be playing say Book of Ra in the nearby Casino, be able to get a beer in a relaxing atmosphere as opposed to nipping into the bookies with a load of tables with betting slips and pens scattered about, unable to grab a beer and hunkered over in what feels like an old school telephone booth.

Thing is though, I can see where the bookies are coming from with their offers of tea etc. Where I used to live we had a place called Casino Slots on the High Street. Nothing fancy. Just a place with a few £500 jackpot machines, the usual Rainbow Riches and a whole array of different Pub Fruities. Whenever I used to pop in I'd always be offered a tea or coffee straight away. Not because I was a high roller or frequent customer. It was just something they did to everyone. It felt nice. It wasn't amazing tea or coffee. Just the standard PG/Nescafe. But it was the gesture that always felt nice. However the way the bookies have done it here though is completely wrong. Using such tactics to encourage people to play and hopefully lose more isn't right and surely goes against the grain of RG. If they were offering it to everyone regardless, that's cool. I'd say that's looking after your punters. But, by only doing it to select punters who you suspect can be tempted to lose even more money is totally wrong. I know it's ultimately up to the player to keep control of their gambling, but to try and entice people to potentially go over that edge just to make a bit more profit? Totally wrong. It's a practice that needs to be stopped. I'd rather stick to online or the Casino.


I tend to play at the motorway services, usually open 24/7 and no one breathing down my neck, or itching to throw me out for winning too much (not that this has been much of a problem since the mid 90's). They don't offer free drinks, but I was once offered free parking at Oxford services when I realised I had to dash with a hand full of coins after I asked a supervisor for the time, and realised I had 10 minutes to get back to the car and move on. It seems that this is an unofficial perk you can get at all Welcome Break services, because at Fleet I got chatting to the supervisor because there was a notice that suggested that "machine players" should approach them if they wanted to linger to play. It's not advertised on their website, and given that the onerous charges are designed to ensure spaces are available so as to meet their obligation to never have to turn tired drivers away through lack of spaces, it seems rather odd that they would put machine profits ahead of the safety of road users in general.

This is still one of those unadvertised perks designed to make it easy for people to keep playing, not so different to perks offered by bookies and casinos. Maybe I could even get a free room at the Travelodge:D
 
I tend to play at the motorway services, usually open 24/7 and no one breathing down my neck, or itching to throw me out for winning too much (not that this has been much of a problem since the mid 90's). They don't offer free drinks, but I was once offered free parking at Oxford services when I realised I had to dash with a hand full of coins after I asked a supervisor for the time, and realised I had 10 minutes to get back to the car and move on. It seems that this is an unofficial perk you can get at all Welcome Break services, because at Fleet I got chatting to the supervisor because there was a notice that suggested that "machine players" should approach them if they wanted to linger to play. It's not advertised on their website, and given that the onerous charges are designed to ensure spaces are available so as to meet their obligation to never have to turn tired drivers away through lack of spaces, it seems rather odd that they would put machine profits ahead of the safety of road users in general.

This is still one of those unadvertised perks designed to make it easy for people to keep playing, not so different to perks offered by bookies and casinos. Maybe I could even get a free room at the Travelodge:D

A perk, should it have existed which would have saved me and my friend a small fortune during the 90's, several Motorway trips (or should these be Ace Coin emptying trips :p) ended up in 'overnight' stays and no way I was sleeping in the car with umpteen dozen £1 coins and a mate who snored like a trooper.

Pity Travel Lodge didn't accept 20p tokens as payment!
 
Nope lol!

This sort of thing has been going on for years tho.

When I worked in a land based casino there was all sorts of 'keep em betting' strategies going on by our management, mostly for hi-rollers but sometimes for those who'd show up regular and spend small but often amounts.

Terrible practice IMO but would include:-

* Complimentary drinks (alcoholic and normal)
* Free Meals, including Steaks with 'the works'
* Free Even chance bets with 1x turnover
* Packs of 20 fags
* Free Taxi's to and from the casino
* Complimentary nights out, live shows, horse race meetings, coach always picked up and collected from the casino :rolleyes:
* Free buffet nights
* 'Behind closed doors' cash back for heavier losers

What they are doing now is just a more up to date version but same evil intentions tho!

I am going to be completely honest here at the expense of sounding naive.

I don't really see a problem with this practice.

A gambler is at the bookies for a reason and on his own accord.

He's not there to pick up the ladies (Unless of course female employees are encouraged to flirt with customer's by management as well) ;)

No, he's there to gamble.

If someone has a gambling addiction, it is no-ones fault but the player him/her self.

The player is going to be blowing his money left, right and center regardless of a bookies "hospitality".

Now I understand that the bookmaker is in some sense "Preying" on the individuals they view as addicts, but they'll (Gamblers) do it anyway.

At least some bookmakers are wining and dining you while you are "Enjoying" your gambling.

It's no different to online loyalty programs.

Just my few pennies on the matter.
 
I am going to go out on a limb here and disagree completely with all three of you.

Yes FOBT's are bad, especially when bookmakers are refusing to take straight up sports bets, and they need regulation. However that does not mean offering high rollers, regular customers "perks" is bad.

Frankly as an online casino player I ENJOY getting perks. Be it gifts in the post or bonus deposit offers or whatever. Online casinos cant offer you a free drink, or a free meal, or turn up the heating for you so instead they offer a bonus. When I go to a live casino I expect some sort of comp - free parking/food/drink etc. If I was a big spender I would most definitely expect better treatment. I do not think offering these things to your good customers is bad and in honesty this is a story out of nothing intending to jump on the FOBT bandwagon. You would all complain if you spent hundreds every day at your favourite online casino and got nothing. In fact you would all go elsewhere.




That is true and annoyingly they do not let people bet on the good sports odds unless they also play the machines at the side. Max £2 or something online unless you are a total mug.



It is the regulation limiting the max prize/stake, NOT the bookies. When the machines first came out with no regulation you could win 5 figures per spin of roulette. Believe me if they had their way again it would be as you want.

Got there before me, I agree completely.
 
My points were not really strong ones, just what I experienced whilst working in the industry.

The down side were reasonably rare exceptions, quick example would be the mid-roller who told me 'I only came in for the buffet and a quick socialise and now I've done the 1K I won last week back'

No one other than the punters fault but still not good to hear from a 'being human' point of view.
 
My points were not really strong ones, just what I experienced whilst working in the industry.

The down side were reasonably rare exceptions, quick example would be the mid-roller who told me 'I only came in for the buffet and a quick socialise and now I've done the 1K I won last week back'

No one other than the punters fault but still not good to hear from a 'being human' point of view.

Don't worry, I understand what your saying Jon :thumbsup:

From the perspective of the bookmaker it would be seen as a downside that some guys would come in and take advantage of them; turning the tables completely, I like that.

It's good to see that not all players fall for obviously contrived gestures ;)

But it does prove two things.

A) It is always the players fault if they gamble their money irresponsibly and can not have any self control over their limits. In no way are the bookies responsible; even if the do give away nice things.

B) The bookies are still assholes if they feel aggrieved when someone "takes advantage" of their "good will"; when in fact they only want to offer it to paying customers.

It's like those hateful Bar Stewards in pubs (see what I did there?) who only let you use their toilet if you buy a beer, can't count how many times I nearly pissed myself :mad:
 

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