Fixed-odds betting terminals prey on the poorest, destroying lives along the way, says former sports minister

Killing machines: Tracey Crouch on why she resigned as minister over FOBTs

It’s 9.30am on Chatham’s high street and already three bookmakers are doing a brisk trade.

Customers are perched on stools in front of fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs), the controversial machines at the heart of a cross-party row that triggered the resignation of the former sports minister Tracey Crouch and forced the government into a humiliating climbdown.

Crouch has harboured concerns about FOBTs since they began popping up at a rate of knots in impoverished corners of her Kent constituency of Chatham and Aylesford.

“It seemed a slightly curious thing to do, to open bookmakers in very deprived areas,” recalls Crouch, who grew up in a single-parent household in nearby Folkestone, where her mother struggled to make ends meet on a social worker’s wage.

“It became apparent that they [gambling companies] were doing it because the numbers of machines per shop are limited [to four], so the more shops you have the more machines you have in a smaller area.”

Government makes U-turn over delay to £2 FOBT maximum stake Read more

She voiced concern from the backbenches but it was the stories she heard after becoming a “reluctant minister”, with responsibility for gambling policy, that hardened her resolve.

Such was her strength of feeling that Crouch felt honour-bound to quit when the chancellor, Philip Hammond, announced that a cut in FOBT maximum stakes – from £100 to £2 – would not take effect until October 2019 not, as she had expected, in April 2019.

The six-month difference might have seemed small, but she knew all too well what personal tragedies could unfold in that space of time.

“You think about the stories that you’ve heard and they seep into your head and heart. A group of addicts came to see me and it was absolutely silent when every person was telling their story and saying they’d contemplated suicide.

“Other people were crying silently because their stories were the same.

“It sounds like an exaggeration but I felt really lucky that they were all in the room. Really, I could have been talking to ghosts.

“There was one woman who remortgaged her house twice [due to FOBT gambling] and she went down to the train station and was on the platform waiting to jump until, completely by chance, her daughter called.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Fixed odds betting terminals tend to be concentrated in the most deprived communities, says the former sports minister Tracey Crouch. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

Crouch was also moved by the campaigning work of Charles and Liz Ritchie, who set up the Gambling With Lives charity after their son Jack, 24, killed himself following a FOBT addiction.

“I couldn’t justify the delay to people like that,” she says.

“I couldn’t take the responsibility of potentially not meeting people in the future because they’d taken their lives over these machines.”

Crouch describes herself as “quite shy” but in the 10 minutes she spends posing for photographs outside a well-known bookmaker, she chats easily with constituents, most of whom approach with congratulations for resigning on principle.

“You’re not playing on those awful machines, are you Tracey?” asks one. “They’re too much for people.”

“We want you to have your job back,” says another.

That seems unlikely. Crouch made no secret of her anger when the Treasury announced the FOBT delay over her head, after three years of hard work on the review that led to the policy.

“I was pretty cross. We were working on one timeframe, the Treasury – or some parts of the Treasury – were working on a different timeframe.

“Conversations were being had by those who wanted the change and those that didn’t. Those that didn’t were perhaps just a bit more persuasive.”

She means the pro-gambling MP Philip Davies, who featured in her resignation letter as “those with registered interests” – a thinly-veiled reference to his enjoyment of hospitality as a guest of the gambling industry.

Quick guide What you need to know about FOBTs Show Hide What are FOBTs? Fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs) are machines, found largely in bookmakers and betting shops, that allow customers to stake up to £100 every 20 seconds on digital versions of games such as roulette. How many are there? The UK has 33,611 FOBTs, each of which take more than £53,000 from gamblers per year. Why are they considered a problem? Critics of FOBTs say they are particularly addictive, allow gamblers to rack up huge losses within a few hours, and are concentrated in deprived areas. They have also been linked to money laundering.

“[Culture minister] Jeremy Wright was asked to go and meet Philip Davies, who expressed he didn’t like the policy full stop. For some reason, Jeremy thought there would be a good compromise to bring it in in October.

“At that point the chancellor shifted and it became a bit of a mess really from there. When it became a Treasury announcement, we lost control over the timing. Junior ministers don’t get to see the chancellor.”

Crouch mulled over her resignation during a transatlantic flight to Washington and discussed it with her partner, the BBC Radio Kent presenter Steve Ladner.

When rumours that the government might do a U-turn during a wind-up debate on the budget proved unfounded, she “pressed send” on a resignation message to the prime minister.

In the end, a cleverly worded amendment, signed by more than 100 MPs, including Crouch, forced the government into an embarrassing volte-face anyway.

“I did warn them [the government] but I wasn’t listened to,” she says. “There was quite an arrogant view that we wouldn’t be able to put down an amendment [capable of changing the budget] but they underestimated the intellectual capacity of many people on the backbenches.

“They also underestimated the strength of feeling from very different parts of the party. To have people like me and other so-called One Nation Tories signing an amendment with people like Jacob [Rees-Mogg], Iain [Duncan-Smith] and Boris [Johnson], seen as on the right wing, they didn’t quite appreciate that.”

Might some of those signatories have been more interested in giving the government a bloody nose, perhaps as part of Brexit machinations?

“I genuinely think that’s unfair. Boris was talking against these machines when he was mayor of London. Jacob thinks they are evil. People forget he’s very religious and it comes from a moral view, I’d say.”

Her resignation has meant more time to spend at home, watching live sport and looking after her two-year-old son Freddie, whose birth in 2016 saw her become the first Tory minister to take maternity leave in office.

She hasn’t missed Westminster during the frenzy over May’s Brexit deal; and even amid the ministerial merry-go-round it has fuelled, she has not felt a desire to seek a return to top-level politics.

“I don’t think I’d be asked. The job I was given was the only one I really wanted and I’m not interested in high office for the sake of it.”

Nor does she enjoy the factional Punch & Judy aggression that has consumed politics of late.

“When you see some of the vitriol between the different camps on Brexit, it doesn’t sit comfortably with me. I’d rather just remove myself from wherever it’s happening.

“I respect political differences in the same way that I’m a Tottenham Hotspur fan and I don’t like Arsenal – but I can recognise when they’re playing well.”