The ruling majority in Romania’s Chamber of Deputies tabled on short notice and quickly endorsed a bill under which the slot machines will be banned in localities with a population of under 15,000 residents.
The ruling Social Democratic Party said it is a first step towards regulating the gambling industry, while the opposition party USR claimed that the bill is not sufficient and an attempt to prevent a genuine law that would regulate the industry.
The lawmakers had previously discussed banning advertising promoting gambling and banning the betting shops and slot machines in the central area of the cities.
“The scourge of gambling does not exist only in localities with 15,000 inhabitants. Scams destroy millions of families throughout the country. We voted for this law, but until we adopt the correct solutions, we leave more than half of Romanians unprotected,” USR MP Diana Stoica pointed out.
The lawmakers of the ruling majority promised that more bills to regulate the gambling industry would follow.
Showing posts with label Slots. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Slots. Show all posts
April 10, 2024
Romanian lawmakers vote to ban slot machines in localities with a population under 15,000
May 08, 2019
How the 'Las Vegas of Italy' is kicking its slot machine addiction
At the start of this year, Massimo was standing on a bridge “determined to jump off”. The 45-year-old had been struggling with gambling addiction since 2001.
“I started to play slot machines and video poker after the death of my father and ended up spending €5,000 a day,” says the artisan fence-maker, from the city of Pavia in northern Italy. He was soon in debt to loan sharks and ended up stealing to fund his habit, including from his own mother, before considering suicide.
Now Massimo (not his real name) lives in La Casa del Giovane, a unit that houses 100 patients suffering from addictions. Around half of the cases involve gambling – a symptom of an epidemic that has gripped Pavia for more than a decade.
For centuries the city was best known as “Oxford on Ticino”: it hosts one of the country’s most prestigious universities, founded in 1361, and a beautiful medieval castle. Built about 25 miles south of Milan on the ancient Via Francigena pilgrim route running from France to Rome, its historic centre is currently a candidate to become a Unesco world heritage site.
That reputation changed in 2013 when the city was identified as Italy’s “capital of gambling”, with a video or slot gambling machine for every 104 inhabitants. Although Italians never flocked there to gamble – Pavia is no Vegas or Atlantic City – local media nicknamed it “the Italian Las Vegas”.
“We had realised something new was going on in 2004, when a 14-year-old boy brought in his father, who was showing clear signs of gambling addiction,” recalls Simone Feder, a psychologist heading the facility’s addiction programme. “Soon after, a very bourgeois-looking elderly couple asked for our help: the husband had gambled away all their money.” Since then Feder says he has treated patients of all ages and walks of life.
Pavia was shocked to hit the headlines this way, but not everybody simply accepted the news: a small group of residents self-organised into a grassroots movement called SenzaSlot (“without slot machines”) to fight the addiction. Their efforts are finally bearing fruit.
“One day I went into a bar and I could not hear the noise of the spoon with which I was mixing sugar in my coffee because of the noise of coins being inserted into slot machines,” says the group’s Pietro Pace, a computer scientist. “Inside there were people who were burning their entire salary.”
Many residents blame the city’s problems on the shift it has experienced since the 1970s, when its mechanical goods industry hit troubled times and its population fell from a high of around 87,000 (it is currently 72,000). Now the main sources of employment are the hospital and the university, and Pavia has become a dormitory city for Milan, the industrial powerhouse to its north.
“On a cultural level, there’s not much to do,” says Giulia Cavaliere, an editor and writer who has lived in Pavia all her life. “It’s a wealthy city but the mentality here is rather closed. There’s just one movie theatre. The university is the only thing that is keeping the city alive, ensuring a constant flow of young people.”
SenzaSlot says these factors all came together to make Pavia particularly susceptible to gambling addiction. In the mid-2000s, after the national government removed restrictions, gaming machines began to spread through the city’s bars and cafes. Suddenly residents would stumble upon a gambling opportunity every time they bought a cappuccino.
“The city filled with slots and video poker machines,” recalls Ludovica Cassetta, another SenzaSlot activist. “It took a few years, but it was a constant process. We reached the point where bars looked like they were all about gambling, as if regular costumers didn’t matter any more.”
By 2013 Pavia had 647 slot machines and the highest per capita spending on gambling in Italy: €1,600 a year.
SenzaSlot’s first project was a website to map the few bars and cafes in the city that did not have slot machines. It now also provides gambling-free bars with a window sticker to highlight their lack of machines and runs events to inform residents, especially schoolchildren, about the dangers of gambling.
The group offers legal support to cafe owners who want to remove slot machines from their premises – which is not as straightforward as it might sound. Pubs and cafes don’t directly operate the machines, which are owned and managed by separate companies that give bar owners a share of revenues.
Installing a new slot machine is easy, but removing one can be hard: there is the loss of income (around €500 to €750 a month per machine) and the likelihood that the bar will have to pay a penalty (typically around €8,000 per machine) for breaking a contract.
“If you hold a pair of slot machines in your bar, they bring you €1,000 to €1,500 each month, which allows many to pay the rent,” says Riccardo Bernasconi, owner of Sottovento, a slot-free snack bar. He says many bar owners agree to host the machines because the companies that operate them throw in credit card payment systems free of charge. Bernasconi has vowed never to host gaming machines, because most of his customers are students who he feels are too young to understand the dangers.
By contrast, Matteo Tacchinardi, owner of the century-old Bar Italia, has hosted gaming machines for more than a decade. He considered getting rid of them but says he could not afford the penalty. “I would have to pay €8,000 for every machine, and it’s too much for me,” he says. Nevertheless, upset at the sight of his customers “throwing away their money”, he refuses to change bills into coins if he knows they will be used in the machines.
But the SenzaSlot movement has made inroads, and now has the local authorities on its side. The former mayor of Pavia, Massimo Depaoli, introduced restrictions limiting when the machines can operate to eight hours a day – from 10am to 1pm and 6pm to 11pm – in an effort to reduce use by vulnerable groups such as children and older people.
The city council has also introduced a rule forbidding the opening of any new slot machines within 500 metres of a school, church or retirement community. “Unfortunately, we couldn’t touch the existing slot machines because we have to wait until the end of the contract,” says Depaoli, who stepped down last month. “But Pavia is not a very large city, so it is hard to find places that don’t fall in the restricted areas.”
The municipality has barred slot machines from premises it owns, and offered slot-free bars and cafes longer opening hours on public holidays as an incentive to make the shift.
The policies appear to be having an effect. By the end of last year, the number of gambling machines in Pavia had fallen from 642 to 547, with the per capita spend down 25% to €1,200.
The SenzaSlot activists, meanwhile, welcome the latest moves but say the wider fight is not yet won. “True, our city is trying to limit slots,” says Cassetta, “but the fact is there are plenty of towns nearby that don’t have any anti-slot regulations. People can just go there to gamble.”
“I started to play slot machines and video poker after the death of my father and ended up spending €5,000 a day,” says the artisan fence-maker, from the city of Pavia in northern Italy. He was soon in debt to loan sharks and ended up stealing to fund his habit, including from his own mother, before considering suicide.
Now Massimo (not his real name) lives in La Casa del Giovane, a unit that houses 100 patients suffering from addictions. Around half of the cases involve gambling – a symptom of an epidemic that has gripped Pavia for more than a decade.
For centuries the city was best known as “Oxford on Ticino”: it hosts one of the country’s most prestigious universities, founded in 1361, and a beautiful medieval castle. Built about 25 miles south of Milan on the ancient Via Francigena pilgrim route running from France to Rome, its historic centre is currently a candidate to become a Unesco world heritage site.
That reputation changed in 2013 when the city was identified as Italy’s “capital of gambling”, with a video or slot gambling machine for every 104 inhabitants. Although Italians never flocked there to gamble – Pavia is no Vegas or Atlantic City – local media nicknamed it “the Italian Las Vegas”.
“We had realised something new was going on in 2004, when a 14-year-old boy brought in his father, who was showing clear signs of gambling addiction,” recalls Simone Feder, a psychologist heading the facility’s addiction programme. “Soon after, a very bourgeois-looking elderly couple asked for our help: the husband had gambled away all their money.” Since then Feder says he has treated patients of all ages and walks of life.
Pavia was shocked to hit the headlines this way, but not everybody simply accepted the news: a small group of residents self-organised into a grassroots movement called SenzaSlot (“without slot machines”) to fight the addiction. Their efforts are finally bearing fruit.
“One day I went into a bar and I could not hear the noise of the spoon with which I was mixing sugar in my coffee because of the noise of coins being inserted into slot machines,” says the group’s Pietro Pace, a computer scientist. “Inside there were people who were burning their entire salary.”
Many residents blame the city’s problems on the shift it has experienced since the 1970s, when its mechanical goods industry hit troubled times and its population fell from a high of around 87,000 (it is currently 72,000). Now the main sources of employment are the hospital and the university, and Pavia has become a dormitory city for Milan, the industrial powerhouse to its north.
“On a cultural level, there’s not much to do,” says Giulia Cavaliere, an editor and writer who has lived in Pavia all her life. “It’s a wealthy city but the mentality here is rather closed. There’s just one movie theatre. The university is the only thing that is keeping the city alive, ensuring a constant flow of young people.”
SenzaSlot says these factors all came together to make Pavia particularly susceptible to gambling addiction. In the mid-2000s, after the national government removed restrictions, gaming machines began to spread through the city’s bars and cafes. Suddenly residents would stumble upon a gambling opportunity every time they bought a cappuccino.
“The city filled with slots and video poker machines,” recalls Ludovica Cassetta, another SenzaSlot activist. “It took a few years, but it was a constant process. We reached the point where bars looked like they were all about gambling, as if regular costumers didn’t matter any more.”
By 2013 Pavia had 647 slot machines and the highest per capita spending on gambling in Italy: €1,600 a year.
SenzaSlot’s first project was a website to map the few bars and cafes in the city that did not have slot machines. It now also provides gambling-free bars with a window sticker to highlight their lack of machines and runs events to inform residents, especially schoolchildren, about the dangers of gambling.
The group offers legal support to cafe owners who want to remove slot machines from their premises – which is not as straightforward as it might sound. Pubs and cafes don’t directly operate the machines, which are owned and managed by separate companies that give bar owners a share of revenues.
Installing a new slot machine is easy, but removing one can be hard: there is the loss of income (around €500 to €750 a month per machine) and the likelihood that the bar will have to pay a penalty (typically around €8,000 per machine) for breaking a contract.
“If you hold a pair of slot machines in your bar, they bring you €1,000 to €1,500 each month, which allows many to pay the rent,” says Riccardo Bernasconi, owner of Sottovento, a slot-free snack bar. He says many bar owners agree to host the machines because the companies that operate them throw in credit card payment systems free of charge. Bernasconi has vowed never to host gaming machines, because most of his customers are students who he feels are too young to understand the dangers.
By contrast, Matteo Tacchinardi, owner of the century-old Bar Italia, has hosted gaming machines for more than a decade. He considered getting rid of them but says he could not afford the penalty. “I would have to pay €8,000 for every machine, and it’s too much for me,” he says. Nevertheless, upset at the sight of his customers “throwing away their money”, he refuses to change bills into coins if he knows they will be used in the machines.
But the SenzaSlot movement has made inroads, and now has the local authorities on its side. The former mayor of Pavia, Massimo Depaoli, introduced restrictions limiting when the machines can operate to eight hours a day – from 10am to 1pm and 6pm to 11pm – in an effort to reduce use by vulnerable groups such as children and older people.
The city council has also introduced a rule forbidding the opening of any new slot machines within 500 metres of a school, church or retirement community. “Unfortunately, we couldn’t touch the existing slot machines because we have to wait until the end of the contract,” says Depaoli, who stepped down last month. “But Pavia is not a very large city, so it is hard to find places that don’t fall in the restricted areas.”
The municipality has barred slot machines from premises it owns, and offered slot-free bars and cafes longer opening hours on public holidays as an incentive to make the shift.
The policies appear to be having an effect. By the end of last year, the number of gambling machines in Pavia had fallen from 642 to 547, with the per capita spend down 25% to €1,200.
The SenzaSlot activists, meanwhile, welcome the latest moves but say the wider fight is not yet won. “True, our city is trying to limit slots,” says Cassetta, “but the fact is there are plenty of towns nearby that don’t have any anti-slot regulations. People can just go there to gamble.”
June 05, 2015
Playtech releases slot games to Spanish licensees
Playtech will extend its dominance of the Spanish casino market by supplying all existing local licensees with access to its extensive, industry-leading slots portfolio.
Playtech’s existing licensees will offer the company’s industry-leading online and mobile slot content from today – the official date set by Spanish regulator La Dirección General de Ordenación del Juego (DGOJ) for the allowance of casino slot games.
As a result, each licensee will offer Playtech’s best-performing slot content including locally themed in-house and premium branded games from major studios such as Paramount and Universal and popular land-based titles, giving them access to the most complete Omni-Channel offering available within the Spanish market.
The Playtech offering in Spain is unrivalled delivering cutting-edge, profitable Omni-Channel gaming solutions to leading online, mobile and land-based brands across all verticals via Playtech ONE.
Playtech’s pioneering ONE technology allows players a seamless, anywhere-anytime gaming experience across any product, channel and device all using a single account and single wallet.
The Spanish gaming regulator approved slot games in July last year and re-opened its licensing window in November, the first time this has taken place since the market regulated in June 2012.
Shimon Akad, COO, Playtech, said: “The inclusion of online casino games and slots in Spain is a major breakthrough and will serve to increase our market share there.
“Our licensees and their players can now enjoy a complete Omni-Channel gaming solution online, on any mobile device, in-venue, and in retail outlets, across casino, bingo, poker, sports, virtual, live, and social, casual and fixed-odds games.”
Playtech’s existing licensees will offer the company’s industry-leading online and mobile slot content from today – the official date set by Spanish regulator La Dirección General de Ordenación del Juego (DGOJ) for the allowance of casino slot games.
As a result, each licensee will offer Playtech’s best-performing slot content including locally themed in-house and premium branded games from major studios such as Paramount and Universal and popular land-based titles, giving them access to the most complete Omni-Channel offering available within the Spanish market.
The Playtech offering in Spain is unrivalled delivering cutting-edge, profitable Omni-Channel gaming solutions to leading online, mobile and land-based brands across all verticals via Playtech ONE.
Playtech’s pioneering ONE technology allows players a seamless, anywhere-anytime gaming experience across any product, channel and device all using a single account and single wallet.
The Spanish gaming regulator approved slot games in July last year and re-opened its licensing window in November, the first time this has taken place since the market regulated in June 2012.
Shimon Akad, COO, Playtech, said: “The inclusion of online casino games and slots in Spain is a major breakthrough and will serve to increase our market share there.
“Our licensees and their players can now enjoy a complete Omni-Channel gaming solution online, on any mobile device, in-venue, and in retail outlets, across casino, bingo, poker, sports, virtual, live, and social, casual and fixed-odds games.”
January 24, 2015
Slot machines coming to Hawaii’s airports if local pol gets her way
Slot machines are coming to Hawaii‘s airports if a local politician gets her way. State Rep. Cindy Evans has introduced a bill to allow passengers flying out of Hawaii the option of spinning a few reels after their planes are delayed.
HB 91 authorizes “the implementation of amusement concessions to provide slot machines at state airports for departing passengers.” Basically, duty-free slots. To play, you have to provide evidence that you’re over 21 years of age and scheduled to fly beyond US borders within the next 12 hours.
Interested operators have to apply for an ‘amusement concession’ license for an as yet undetermined fee. The state gets an 86% chunk of net revenue – gross revenue minus taxes, winnings, salaries, airport fees and rent – or a minimal annual guarantee, whichever’s bigger. The state’s cut would go into an airport improvement fund.
The bill expressly does not authorize online gambling, electronic bingo or other forms of gambling. Slots it is and these slots will be limited to secure areas of the airport. No slots can be visible to airport passers-by and operators aren’t allowed to advertise their wares in Hawaii by any means. Presumably the designated area will be labeled as such on airport maps.
If passed (doubtful), the act would take effect on July 1. Hawaii and Utah are the last bastions of non-gambling in the United States but Evans said this was a “very unique and different” way to help the state’s aging airports, an “out of the box” proposal.
The Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA) has already said it won’t support any gambling measure. The HTA issued a statement saying gambling “would not enhance our destination brand, but rather dilute it and distract from” the state’s traditional charms.
Evans has voted against previous gambling proposals but said this plan mainly targeted departing tourists and was therefore “not about gambling in Hawaii.” Evans told HawaiiNewsNow her bill would allow visitors to Hawaii “in their last few hours, spend their money in Hawaii and leave their money in Hawaii.”
HB 91 authorizes “the implementation of amusement concessions to provide slot machines at state airports for departing passengers.” Basically, duty-free slots. To play, you have to provide evidence that you’re over 21 years of age and scheduled to fly beyond US borders within the next 12 hours.
Interested operators have to apply for an ‘amusement concession’ license for an as yet undetermined fee. The state gets an 86% chunk of net revenue – gross revenue minus taxes, winnings, salaries, airport fees and rent – or a minimal annual guarantee, whichever’s bigger. The state’s cut would go into an airport improvement fund.
The bill expressly does not authorize online gambling, electronic bingo or other forms of gambling. Slots it is and these slots will be limited to secure areas of the airport. No slots can be visible to airport passers-by and operators aren’t allowed to advertise their wares in Hawaii by any means. Presumably the designated area will be labeled as such on airport maps.
If passed (doubtful), the act would take effect on July 1. Hawaii and Utah are the last bastions of non-gambling in the United States but Evans said this was a “very unique and different” way to help the state’s aging airports, an “out of the box” proposal.
The Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA) has already said it won’t support any gambling measure. The HTA issued a statement saying gambling “would not enhance our destination brand, but rather dilute it and distract from” the state’s traditional charms.
Evans has voted against previous gambling proposals but said this plan mainly targeted departing tourists and was therefore “not about gambling in Hawaii.” Evans told HawaiiNewsNow her bill would allow visitors to Hawaii “in their last few hours, spend their money in Hawaii and leave their money in Hawaii.”
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