\n ABOUT one-quarter-of-a-million people (0.5 per cent of the population) are problem gamblers, and 2.2 million people (3.8 per cent) are ‘at-risk’ gamblers, according to the latest Public Health England report on gambling.\n<\/p>\n
\n The figures may seem relatively small, certainly compared with, say, 20 years ago, but the problems associated with gambling are multitude and serious.\n<\/p>\n
\n There is one self-confessed former gambling \u201caddict\u201d who can testify to that and this is one of the reasons writer James Drew, of York, decided to put pen to paper and tell his very own personal story.\n<\/p>\n
\n And what a story it is.\n<\/p>\n
\n Under the title Beating The Machines, his story might come as a salutatory tale to anyone with any sort of \u201caddiction\u201d, mild or otherwise.\n<\/p>\n
\n James Drew with his new book – Beating The Machines. Image supplied\n<\/p>\n
\n It is an account of James’s 25-year \u201ccareer\u201d addicted to the fruit machines.\n<\/p>\n
\n Yes, we are talking about those bright-coloured things you used to see in every pub in the UK and, of course, amusement arcades that took centre-stage in most British seaside resorts.\n<\/p>\n
\n But the book comes with a bit of serious health warning too, outlining how his fondness for fruit machines led him to being banned from places, threatened by thugs and very nearly cost him a lifelong friendship.\n<\/p>\n
\n It is, though, above all else an entertaining and instructive blast, evoking in the process a period in British cultural history now consigned to the past.\n<\/p>\n
\n Fruity starts when James, then aged just 17, was living in his native York and, even then, \u201cvery much addicted to fruit machines\u201d.\n<\/p>\n
\n Actually, as someone who grew up in pubs (his parents were pub landlords) that should come as no great shock, not least as most pubs in the UK back then (this was the 1970s and 1980s) heavily featured fruit machines as a principle source of entertainment (along with, maybe, a pool table).\n<\/p>\n
\n James makes no attempt to conceal the scale of his addiction at this stage.\n<\/p>\n
\n He recalls how in 1988 his life \u201cchanged forever\u201d because he \u2013 and best buddy Rich \u2013 twigged how to play the machines \u201cbetter than anyone else alive.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n A \u201cvery happy childhood\u201d included, from the age of six or seven, being transfixed by fruit machines \u2013 \u201cfruities\u201d in the jargon \u2013 in his parents\u2019 various pubs that, \u201cas far as I could see seemed only to pay money out.\u201d.\n<\/p>\n
\n It is worth pointing out, as James does, that the UK still has some of the world\u2019s strictest laws on fruit machines \u2013 they are still obliged to pay out a minimum of 70 percent of every penny that is put into them. But, crucially, this applies across the lifetime of the machine, so it will pay out its 70 percent, but only as that percentage of its takings over its lifetime.\n<\/p>\n
\n In any event, James says that from 1980 he was hooked even if, back then, the jackpot was no more than one pound and then paid out as \u201ctokes\u201d or tokens.\n<\/p>\n
\n These \u201cgaudy, colourful, flashing\u201d boxes in the corner of the pub bar really were, for the two of them, a \u201cgolden goose\u201d.\n<\/p>\n
\n They were a \u201cdifferent breed from normal punters\u201d but all this came at a cost with James readily admitting he was playing on the machines when \u201cI was supposed to be studying hard for my A levels\u201d.\n<\/p>\n
\n Fast forward a few years, and the two pals, and also James\u2019s uncle Phil, later took to the road to find that Britain\u2019s seaside amusement arcades provided even richer pickings.\n<\/p>\n
\n A fruit machine Image: Newsquest\n<\/p>\n
\n The machines were pumping out so many coins that he recalls them having to \u201cvigorously scrub\u201d my hands to get them clean.\n<\/p>\n
\n What was the secret of their amazing success? Well, he goes into some detail, as you might expect, to explain the \u201cskill chances\u201d that lay at the heart of it all.\n<\/p>\n
\n Without giving too much away he reveals he was \u201cthe first person in the UK to stumble across\u201d one particular \u201clittle trick\u201d.\n<\/p>\n
\n This may have been \u201ceasy for a young man of my talents\u201d but it also naturally drew the attention of amusement arcade owners, some of whom took a very dim view of the sums of money the two lads were making on their premises.\n<\/p>\n
\n Unlike his best buddy, whom he later fell out with over their mutual gambling habits (both are since reconciled) James says that, despite winning \u201chundreds, thousands of pounds doing something that, at the time, very few others were doing\u201d he never really ended up with much, financially, to show for it all.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI have absolutely nothing left to show for my time at the top of the game, save some very happy memories and the book you are reading.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n So, as he asks himself in the book, what made him want to beat the machines so badly? The answer and his main motivation was old fashioned revenge.\n<\/p>\n
\n Beating The Machines by James Drew\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI wanted revenge on fruit machines, their owners and the arcades. I was seriously addicted to them but, thank God, I was rescued by what I discovered,\u201d says James, who later went on to work in journalism.\n<\/p>\n
\n Beating the Machines, at 88 pages, is a frank account of one man\u2019s addiction, both the sheer fun and joy in doing what he did for 25 years but also a cautionary tale of the flip side of addiction.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt is really like a drug, you see,\u201d he concedes.\n<\/p>\n
\n He was often told \u201cthere\u2019s only one winner in this game, son\u201d and, in some ways that is as true today as back then.\n<\/p>\n
\n But would he do it all again? You bet he would.\n<\/p>\n
\n Now in his mid-50s, he played his last machine in anger ten years ago now but his ‘career’ as one of ‘The Special Ones’ gave him \u201cmore fun and joy than I have ever experienced in my life, before or since\u201d.\n<\/p>\n
\n Beating The Machines is available from Amazon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ABOUT one-quarter-of-a-million people (0.5 per cent of the population) are problem gamblers, and 2.2 million people (3.8 per…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[103,61,60,410,411],"class_list":{"0":"post-275273","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}