If you’ve read the tabloids recently, you could be forgiven for thinking that our industry’s trade association BACTA has done the unthinkable by calling for high-stakes gaming machines, known as Fixed Odds Betting Terminals, to be allowed in all adult gaming venues. FOBTs allow sizeable bets of around £50 per spin on roulette, for example … Continued

Gaming machines have to put up with a lot, as inebriated customers poke and prod their screens and buttons, before fumbling around the payout tray to retrieve any winnings. So it’s little surprise that they’re finally fighting back, as part of a newly commissioned comedy series for E4. Bad Robots is a six-part series by … Continued

Venues interested in juke box hire could soon find it is easier for them to offer recorded music, without the need for special permission under entertainment licensing laws. A consultation by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport concluded earlier this month, with broad support for the proposal to treat both live and recorded music … Continued

Gaming machine hire is a way for venue owners and managers to tap into a multimillion pound market, particularly during the summer months. The latest Betting, Gaming & Lottery Duty Bulletin, published by HMRC and the ONS, shows tax receipts up to and including June 2014. In that month alone, £15 million was collected in … Continued

Pub pool tables help to bring a sense of scenery to pubs – and this summer, they have been doing the same in several theatre productions.The latest of these is A Handful of Stars, a production at London’s Trafalgar Studios until Friday July 25th.A previous run of the show at Theatre503 was a sell-out success, … Continued

Gaming machines often feature a large sign attached to the top of them, advertising the biggest jackpot that can be won in any one game – which is now £100 on the more modern pub machines and up to £400 on club machines.  But is the chance of monetary reward the greatest motivating factor in … Continued

Gaming machines are among the best performers in the UK betting and gaming market on the economic measure of ‘price elasticity of demand’. This is a principle that is used to estimate how much an increase in price might reduce demand – and therefore profits – so retailers and operators know what price point will … Continued

England’s World Cup campaign may not have gone to plan, but there’s plenty of reasons why gaming machines are likely to have benefited – and may continue to do so until the final is played. Figures from Halifax show how Britons engaged with their finances during the first England match, with cash machine withdrawals down … Continued

A piece of so-called ‘promenade theatre’ in Manchester’s Ancoats district sees small groups of audience members taken through a series of settings, including a scene featuring a pub pool table. Angel Meadow opened on June 10th and runs until June 29th, an ANU Productions feature attached to Manchester’s HOME arts project. It challenges the audience … Continued

We recently reported on how England’s third-choice goalkeeper Fraser Forster is likely to feature as an answer on pub gaming machines in the years to come. But in actual fact, the FIFA 2014 World Cup has already started serving up trivia worthy of pub quiz machines, even in the first few minutes of the opening … Continued