It is really frustrating when politicians stick their noses into areas about which they know nothing, and then purport to know it all when it comes to ‘crusading’ to the press.
It may be a small island with only 420,000 people, but it is a microcosm of the games and gaming industry, and more importantly, a rich and easily identifiable case-study for my initial rant at the top of this article. Like many other countries, Malta went through the rash of illegal or semi-legal gaming locations, as usual, the industry taking advantage of the situation and as usual we had a knee-jerk reaction from the authorities. But they closed down pretty well everything, including most of the amusement industry, by insisting that redemption (yes, that harmless family-fun ticket collection system for skill games based on old fairground pastimes) is gambling. It is therefore one of the very, very few countries in the world which won’t allow ticket redemption. Even the ultra-conservative Middle Eastern countries see nothing wrong in a fluffy toy prize for a water cannon game. What’s left for Malta and its operators is a hotch-potch of leftover legislation and daft exclusions. You cannot operate a pool table there on anything over one euro, or a soccer table, or a kiddie ride. They insist that an amusement machine is a video game, and that a video game is a gambling machine. Addle-brained politicians with no clue what they’re talking about and, as usual to high up in their ivory towers to take the trouble to find out. Net result, 12-year-olds and 13-year-olds drunk on a Saturday night on St. George’s Beach (I saw it), because they’ve nothing else to do and nowhere else to go. My taxi driver said: “I have two kids, aged four and five. There is nothing I can do with them as a family for safe, innocent fun.” I know it’s been said before, but the industry’s worst enemies are self-seeking politicians intent on self-aggrandisement …..and, sad to say, journalists….
