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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Rob Davies

Spin doctors: gambling firms adopt hard tactics to flood towns with 24-hour slot machines

A composite showing a giant slot machine towering above terraced houses
In Great Britain, the number of ‘adult gaming centres’ rose by 7% to 1,451 between 2022 and 2024, Gambling Commission figures show. Composite: Alex Mellon for the Guardian : Getty Images

It is almost 2am in Peterborough and a handful of punters are wordlessly feeding their money into the machines at Merkur Slots.

A fragment of a song, the lyric “nothing to lose”, drifts through the shop as their funds rapidly evaporate. Closing time is fast approaching, but that does not mean the end of the gambling.

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