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Gamblers in this city lost well over $3 million in a single year. Resident Simon Perfitt, 60, was gambling away over $3000 per day.
We’re not talking about Las Vegas, Macau or any number of better known gambling playgrounds.
The “Crack Cocaine of Gambling” capital of the world is none other than….
Birmingham, England.
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This quaint street is home to a majority of fixed odds machines, resulting in the 5th most losses to them last year of anywhere else in the United Kingdom
We’re talking fixed odds machines and an insane figure of £31,545,125 lost in some of the 712 betting shops that line the city last year alone.
The Fixed Odds Betting Terminals have resulted in huge revenue for bookmakers, while politicians in recent years have attempted unsuccessfully to curb the presence of such machines. Bookmakers argue that thousands would be out of work without them.
The Birmingham Mail reports that the city’s New Street previously ranked as the fifth worst area for losses.
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Pratt told the Mail: “These fixed odds betting terminals destroy you. I became addicted instantly after a friend who played the machines asked me to pop into a bookies one day and have a go.
“After that, all I thought about all day was gambling. I worked to go on these machines and could spend up to 12 hours a day in there.
“I used to get up early and go in to the bookies before I went to work, at lunchtime and would go straight into one after work.
“Within 10 years I had lost £200,000, a relationship and my home as well.”
Some would argue that Glasgow, Scotland, with a population nearly half the size of Birmingham, should take the infamous honor of being the “Crack Cocaine of Gambling” capital of the world as that city actually beat out Birmingham in terms of monies lost to the addictive machines this past year.
- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com
