We revisit last month’s online casino news

Last month here at onlinecasino.ie we commented in our online casino news feature on the current political obsession with the fixed odds gaming machines in our high street betting shops. This week we have seen another intervention in this discussion from Luke Alvarez chief executive of Inspired Gaming Group, which is one of the technology companies that supplies these machines. Two of our best known online casino operators William Hill and Paddy Power both currently operate fixed odds machines supplied by Inspired Gaming Group, and as we reported last month rely on the income from these machines to sustain our high street betting shops. Mr Alvarez was quoted as calling the attack on these machines as ‘ill-founded and lacking credibility’ and added the warning that it would not just be the online casino operators and bookmakers who would suffer from a crackdown, it would also spark big job losses in the technology companies which supply them. In these times when we appear to be on the cusp of a fragile recovery from the financial crisis this would clearly be another reason to warn our politicians of the dangers of intervening in a market on behalf of vociferous anti-gambling lobbying groups. Everyone who enjoys playing casino games online or in the betting shops would agree that we all want a responsible attitude to gambling and accept that a few people find it difficult to control their gambling, but that is no reason to legislate against a leisure activity popular with so many people, the vast majority of whom are responsible gamblers. As with many knee jerk reactions to a perceived problem we have witnessed before, there are always repercussions associated with any ill thought out responses, in this case the livelihoods of the people working in the high street betting shops and the technology companies supplying these machines.