A senior BACTA delegation met with former leader of the UK’s Conservative Party, Iain Duncan Smith, last week to present the findings of an analysis on the economic impact on bookmakers of a reduction in FOBT stakes to £2.

Former UK leader backs BACTA

The delegation was comprised of the group’s president, Gabi Stergides, and chief executive, John White, supported by Oliver Hogan, head economist at the Centre for Economics and Business Research, which conducted the research.

The meeting, held at Duncan Smith’s offices in the Palace of Westminster, explained BACTA’s key arguments that the impact of reducing the FOBT stake to £2 could be up to 47 per cent lower than suggested by the government’s initial impact assessment and could also be offset by the reduction in the fiscal costs of addressing the significant social problems caused by FOBTs.

Expanding on the meeting, Stergides said: “Our message, which was well received by Iain Duncan Smith, was the cost of a clampdown on fixed-odds betting terminals is being exaggerated and the research undertaken by the CEBR demonstrates this in no uncertain terms.”

He added: “The current FOBT stake of £100 is 50 times higher than that of other gaming machines found on the high street and in 2015 and 2016, there were over 230,000 sessions in which an individual lost more than £1,000. Factor in the impact on areas funded by the tax payer such as welfare services, absences from work, housing and the criminal justice system and the social cost of the FOBT stake is an estimated £210m a year – more than £1bn since 2013."

White welcomed the opportunity to develop the holistic arguments, which support a reduction in FOBT stake to £2, saying: “There is the appetite to reduce the FOBT stake and one which is founded on sound economic and social arguments.”

He said the group has demonstrated that the economic costs to the bookmakers have been “grossly exaggerated” and the economic model is not complete until you take into account the human and social costs - “a bill that the state and by extension the tax payer has to pick up.”

Pictured: BACTA chief executive, John White; Oliver Hogan, head economist at the Centre for Economics and Business Research; former leader of the Conservative Party, Ian Duncan Smith; and president at BACTA, Gabi Stergides.