Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what recent assessment he has made of the social risks associated with fixed odds betting terminals; and if he will bring forward proposals to reduce the maximum stake on such terminals.

In December 2014 ​the Responsible Gambling Trust (RGT) published a package of research which looked at potential markers of harm in gaming machine play (including FOBTs). I have encouraged the bookmaking industry to take on board and respond to the findings of this research.

New Regulations come into force on 6 April 2015 which will end unsupervised high stake gambling on FOBTs.