MPs’ FOBT report in breach of parliamentary standards rules

The UK Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Kathryn Hudson, found that the Fixed-odds Betting Terminals (FOBT) report of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) has breached parliamentary standards.

The FOBT report has been published in January, where four breaches have been highlighted by Hudson and prooved that the breaches were “all at the less serious end of the spectrum”. According to the report, the maximum stake to the FOBTs should be reduced from 100 to 2 GBP per spin.

The Association of British Bookmakers (ABB) praised Hudson’s decision and Malcolm George, ABB chief executive, said:
“We are delighted the Standards Commissioner recognised four clear breaches of the rules and upheld our complaint.”
“This small and unrepresentative group of anti-FOBT MPs failed to make it clear they were funded by vested interests, including commercial rivals of high-street bookmakers.”
“The MPs’ report has been exposed as a shambolic, shoddy and one-sided piece of work that has broken a long list of parliamentary rules.”

A review by the government will take place this month. Stay up to date with our Blog for this article’s updates.