The founder of Paddy Power Betfair, Britain’s biggest bookmaker, privately lobbied against betting machines frequently dubbed the “crack cocaine” of gambling, it has emerged. Stewart Kenny, the former chief executive of the betting giant he founded, wrote that there was “no public demand” for fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs), on which people can gamble £100 every 20 seconds, other than within the betting industry, according to the Times.
Although written seven years ago, the intervention from such a senior gambling figure will alarm British bookmakers, who make more than half their profits from FOBTs. The emergence of the comments comes as the government conducts a review into gaming machines and social responsibility measures, which includes FOBTs.
In the 2009 submission to the Irish government, which at the time was consulting on whether to legalise the terminals, Kenny, who stepped down from Paddy Power’s board in August, branded FOBTs “the crack cocaine of gambling”, adding that they were “particularly enticing to younger gamblers in disadvantaged areas”. He also accused the British government of being “as addicted to the tax revenue [from the machines] as vulnerable customers are to losing money in them”.
“There is no public demand, other than from sections of the betting industry, for FOBTs to be legalised in Ireland,” he wrote. “It is in no one’s interest, neither betting shop customers nor wider society … Let us learn from the mistake in the UK of allowing them into betting offices. Once they are in it is impossible to get rid of them or even curb their more addictive elements.”
The Irish government chose not to legalise the machines.
Despite Kenny’s outspoken opposition to FOBTs, Paddy Power, which merged with Betfair this year, has nearly 1,400 of the machines in 350 betting shops.
The firm was also sanctioned by the regulator, the Gambling Commission, earlier this year after it was found to have encouraged a problem gambler to keep betting on FOBTs until he lost five jobs, his home, and access to his children.
FOBTs are restricted to four per shop, but bookmakers can open multiple high street stores to accommodate more. Critics say the machines are highly addictive and fuel debt and crime. The Association of British Bookmakers has always denied that they are more addictive than other forms of gambling.
In the past year, bookmakers have made £1.75bn from FOBTs, providing tax revenues of £438m.