Curb these rapacious street-corner casinos

IN 2005, the Labour government passed – to its eternal shame – a law to liberalise gambling. Only a campaign by this newspaper forced it to abandon plans for giant super-casinos across the country.

But with neither fanfare nor public debate, the new law effectively allowed every betting shop on every high street to turn itself into a casino – by installing fixedodds betting terminals. These touchscreen machines, which are so addictive they’re compared to using crack cocaine, offer casino-style games such as roulette, blackjack and poker. In just 20 seconds, a player can gamble – and lose – £100.

Today, it is clear that the social consequences have been catastrophic. Driven by bookmakers’ greed, the number of machines has doubled in a decade to 35,000. It is no coincidence that the number of problem gamblers has also doubled, to nearly 600,000.

Meanwhile, we have seen rising violence in betting shops, more family breakdown and ballooning levels of personal debt. Inevitably, it is the poorest communities – where the highest concentration of betting shops are found – which have suffered most.

For those hopeless gambling addicts who stand like zombies, pumping in money until they have none left, these corrosive machines are life- destroying. But more depressingly – if that is possible – they destroy the lives of their wives and children. The bookmakers, meanwhile, profit to the tune of £1.8billion a year.

Shamefully, David Cameron failed to confront this problem and his token effort, a registration scheme for those wanting to bet more than £50, was cynically exploited by bookmakers who could target them with mouth-watering offers. He ducked entirely the one change that would make a difference: Reducing the maximum stake.

For this newspaper, which for years has campaigned against these machines, it stank of surrender to the army of betting industry lobbyists.

Now there is good reason to fear we may face another betrayal. Last year ministers launched a new crackdown on fixed-odds machines which promised to consider cutting the maximum stake.

But the review has stalled because Treasury bean counters such as Chancellor Philip Hammond fear losing tax revenues if stakes are cut from £100 to the suggested £2.

To the Mail, this seems an utterly immoral position. It is also deeply misguided, for it ignores the benefits to the taxpayer which would come from limiting these rapacious machines. Isn’t it obvious that the State will save a fortune by not having to rescue the countless families broken by gambling? Mr Hammond’s position sits very uncomfortably with a government led by Theresa May, who came into office determined to fight for the vulnerable against unfettered and exploitative capitalism.

As the daughter of a vicar, Mrs May won’t need the Church of England to say – as it commendably did this week – that these machines are deeply iniquitous.

After a disastrous election, reining them in is exactly the kind of policy which would prove that Mrs May’s government retains both its authority and moral purpose.

Very few issues in politics are black and white. But with fixed- odds betting terminals, the case for controlling them is unanswerable. Mr Hammond should be ashamed of himself. THERE was ludicrous uproar last month over the suggestion that, as part of a lucrative trade deal, US chickens washed in diluted chlorine could be sold in Britain. How Remoaners howled that ministers were selling down the river precious EU food safety standards! So what was their response yesterday, after supermarkets pulled meals thought to contain contaminated eggs imported from Holland (which, last time we looked, was in the EU)? Funnily enough from the Remoaners, there was silence.