Only our German friends would have a word like Glücksspieländerungsstaatsvertrag, which apparently simply means “treaty”. For the coin-machine industry in Germany it can equally be described as Armageddon.

David Snook

The 16 Bundesländer, or provinces of Germany, are flexing their collective muscles and coming down on the arcades and machines in bars like a veritable ton of bricks.

By the time the dust has settled - around the target date of June 2017 - the German industry faces the prospect of having its 265,000 AWP machines hacked in half. That is being done through a string of measures introduced under that long word above.

There are some doubts that the states’ proposals are legal under German federal law, but that may not cut much ice in the corridors of power at the Bundestag, as the industry in Germany retains approximately the same degree of sympathy and support as it does in many other European countries, justifiably or not.

It is all a matter of what the industry is going to do about it. Certainly in some states local litigation has been started by individual operators – often supported  by trade associations seeking a suitable test case – but so far at national level nothing has happened to challenge the treaty. It may be that the German industry is keeping its powder dry, as they say, but on a recent trip there, I experienced a degree of resignation. I hope that impression is misplaced.

The industry has dumped its major IMA trade show again in 2015 (it did the same in 2013) and cited the uncertainty engendered by the aggressive stance taken by the Länder. The right tactic? I said two years ago that I thought not; that to roll over signified submission. Nobody wants that from the leading AWP market in Europe.

In short, Germany, the eyes of Europe are upon you… it is high time to fix bayonets and get stuck in.