Surprise! Surprise! Licensed Betting Office   ……. Getting preferential treatment?

The not unexpected news to allow high street Licensed Betting Office (LBOs) to trade from April and to kick the interests of the Adult Gaming Centre (AGC) sector down the road – again! Left me with a mix of anger and resignation. Anger because no one in The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) seems to have listened to or noticed what we have done as a sector and resignation because that’s the way it is.

For the benefit of our friends at DCMS let’s take the opportunity to set out the facts. LBO’s like AGCs operate on the high street. Both have small footfalls, neither sell alcohol, they share some customers and provide similar gaming machines with the same number of hard surfaces.

LBOs and AGCs have implemented strict cleaning protocols, under pinned by social distancing clear signage.

Unlike LBOs where staff are often seated behind AGC staff walk the floor, direct customers, police the regulations and clean machines thoroughly before and after each customer has played them. Can anyone anywhere provide a plausible reason why LBOs should be open when AGCs, their neighbours on the high street, remain closed?

My industry has gone way beyond what any other retail sector has done!

Hairdressers and nail bars which involve touching customers – will be open before us which simply does not stack-up.

Is it too much to get a proper grown-up explanation from DCMS to explain why? (The above is from John White BACTA chief executive)

We at Comrie think it is disgraceful to allow one part of the industry to open up a month before all other parts. Amusement arcades, bowling alleys, bingo halls and many other industry’s have been made to wait. We will all miss out on the pent up trading that will follow and another month of losses which is taking its toll on so many businesses!

This stinks of who has the most lobbing power with the government, which in turn means who throws the most money at it…..Bookmakers and on-line gambling have had it there way for far too long. We only have to look how they milked FOBT’s and did not care one bit about the harm they were doing with the high limits. On-line betting and gambling needs a complete overhaul as you can literally lose your home in one evening. Is this protecting and value the interests of the UK public???

Here at Comrie and other fruit machine suppliers, we will all be waiting with bated breath to see how many of our pub and social club customers come out the other end of this enforce longer than needed lock down.