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LGA responds to APPG review of maximum stakes on fixed odds betting terminals

Cllr Simon Blackburn, Chair of the LGA's Safer and Stronger Communities Board, responds to an All Party Parliamentary Group review of Fixed Odds Betting Terminals (FOBTs), which recommends maximum stakes are reduced from £100 to £2.

"This cross-party review supports what we have been calling for and we urge government to take swift action by lowering maximum stakes on FOBTs to £2 to protect vulnerable people from harm.

"As well as leading to spiralling debt, problem gambling can impact on individuals and their families' physical, mental and emotional health and wellbeing as well as having a wider impact on society through crime and disorder.

"With rates of problem gambling higher among those who live near clusters of bookmakers, it is essential that, as the report also recommends, councils are given powers to stop further clusters of betting shops on our high streets.

"Councils are not anti-bookie but a new cumulative impact test - which the LGA has previously called for and which government has introduced through the Police and Crime Act for alcohol licensing - would give them the power to veto new shops in areas already saturated by betting shops.

"Following this APPG review and the largest ever Sustainable Communities Act proposal to government calling for stakes to be reduced to £2, government should use its current review to reduce FOBT stakes immediately."

The full report can be downloaded here.

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