The FER show in Madrid was very much a demonstration of the fact that Spain now has the most liberal payout laws for street market machines in Europe.

The country\‘s 2,800 arcades, now filled with 45,000 machines, are settling down to a cross-section of traditional AWPs (category B1) with mostly hybrid spinning reels and video feature screens, but there is a growing tendency to split off part of the arcades into higher payout areas. These house the B2 category games which, depending upon the jurisdiction - and there are 17 of them in Spain - pays out €1,000, which can be as much as €6,000  in the \‘looser\’ Andalucia.

Of amusement machines there was desperately little, showing that in these hardened times, pocket money for amusement takes second place to hoped-for cash returns on gambling machines.

It was a point which was not missed by some of the big names in the casono slots sector. It was indeed unusual to go to a coin machine show designed for the street market and find Novomatic next door to Atronic, next door to Aristocrat. They all now accept that  a 240,000 machine street market cannot be ignored.