A ban on slot machines in pubs and cafes has been proposed by the Hungarian government in an effort to clamp down on gambling.
New legislation put forward by the Prime Minister's office would ban slot machines outside of regulated casinos. The government believes Hungarians, particularly the poor, spend too much of their income on slot machines.
The move will cost 30bn forints ($135m) a year in tax revenues, the government said, but this will be made back by taxing online gaming instead. The PM’s chief of staff, Janos Lazar, also cited “national security concerns” behind the ban, but did not give further details.
He said the ban was set to be approved by Parliament as early as next week and would be in force within a matter of weeks, meaning that no new machines will be allowed to begin operating and existing machines will be removed.
