Now Labour backs clampdown on ‘crack cocaine’ betting machines

LABOUR last night pledged to back a Government clampdown on ‘ crack cocaine’ gambling machines.

The party’s deputy leader Tom Watson said it supported efforts to limit the maximum stake on the ‘addictive’ fixed odds betting terminals.

A Government review is considering reforms to the touchscreen machines which offer casino-style games in bookmakers.

Gamblers can lose as much as £100 every 20 seconds and £1.7 billion is squandered on the machines every year.

The Daily Mail revealed two weeks ago that the review had been kicked into the long grass by Chancellor Philip Hammond. Treasury officials are understood to be concerned that cutting the maximum stake from £100 to £2, as campaigners argue, would blow a £400million hole in tax receipts.

In a letter to Culture Secretary Karen Bradley, Mr Watson wrote: ‘If you need Labour votes to get this proposal through against the wishes of some of your back- benchers, we will provide them. I am confident that between us, we have the numbers in Parliament to curb these addictive machines and the social and health problems which come with them.’

There are more than 34,000 FOBTs in bookmakers across the country, and their numbers have doubled in a decade.

Last week the Church of England urged ministers to push ahead with their clampdown, and former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith branded them a ‘tax on the poor’.

One bookmaker, Paddy Power Betfair, said it was open to reform.

But the Association of British Bookmakers warned slashing the stake would hit 20,000 jobs and ‘end a popular activity for millions of people who gamble responsibly.’