Friday, July 02, 2004

Fruit Machines feel the force of fixed odds betting terminals

Profits from AWP machines drop

As soon as fixed odds betting terminals started to make their way into the bookies, this was a pub landlord's crisis waiting to happen and I guess its just started to filter through to their profits.

Roulette machines offering large jackpots and a variety of bets were always going to threaten the limitations of the fruit machines - with its fixed jackpot of just £25 and its maximum stake of 30p.

But it also brings up an interesting question - is the fact that players are moving across to play at roulette terminals rather than fruit machines simply because of the larger payouts - or because when faced with a 'roulette' game that plays at 95-97% return , compared to the fruit machine that plays at 70-75% - the average punter merely chooses the most advantageous - and lets face it - more interesting gambling game?

Personally, the fruit machine has moved too far from being a dumb but addictive '3 cherry' game to something that plays and looks quite alien to the layperson. Vegas has the slots industry sewn up - maybe we should look at what they're doing right for once to really shake up the machines market here.

posted by jo @ 1:09 AM   0 comments

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