The gaming industry is used to seeing protests of its games and devices. Now, however, it is a game designer who is asking the public to petition the government to “Terminate the Terminals” on which a version of his game is operating.

The terminals in question are the otherwise popular fixed odds betting terminals—FOBTs—which have been producing huge returns for Britain’s betting shops. The machines offer games and sports simulations that have statistically pre-determined outcomes.

The problem is that games like roulette and blackjack when played on the FOBTs do not offer the same odds as their traditional table game counterparts. But while their inventors are not around to object, the creator of the popular Three Card Poker is.

“Gambling should be fun, open and fair—but these terminals offer players little hope,” said Derek Webb, who developed and spent years promoting Three Card Poker, in a press release.

“The theoretical amount per bet that players lose on many bets is higher, and the actual percentage of player cash-ins that players lose is higher.

“In addition, the probability that players will lose all their available cash on a session is much higher.”

Webb describes the differences between the table game and the terminal version of Three Card Poker in an article on the website he created to mount his campaign, fairandopengambling.net. Although the terminal game is intellectually the same as the table game, terminal payoffs to players are lower.

“The U.K. Gambling Commission admits that these machines are ‘particularly attractive to those at risk of problem gambling and those with a gambling problem,’” quotes Webb. “The primary purpose of gambling regulation should be player protection, not the protection of gambling operators or the protection of government revenue from gambling.

“We want the regulators and the government to do their duty and effect the removal of these terminals.”

By GGB Staff

Staff writers for Global Gaming Business magazine. Las Vegas, Nevada.