This Europe: Cutting the odds for slot machine addicts

While most people do not view the sedate and law-abiding Norwegians as manic gamblers, the government says the country is facing a gambling problem.

While most people do not view the sedate and law-abiding Norwegians as manic gamblers, the government says the country is facing a gambling problem.

Thousands of Norwegians have become addicted to playing slot machines.

Norway has Europe's most liberal gambling laws. Slot machines are almost everywhere; in supermarkets, petrol stations, kiosks and train stations. Here you can place larger bets and play faster than anywhere else in Europe.

They almost cost Esben Jensen, a recovered slot machine addict, his life. "I tried to kill myself once by swimming out into the fjord," he said.

"It progressed from being just a bit of fun to the situation where I was losing so much money that I couldn't walk away from the machine because I had to win it back again. I lost my family, I lost my job."

His story is one of many that have led the government to propose cutting the number of machines from the current 18,000 to just a few thousand, and to restrict access to them. Parliament will vote on the proposals this autumn.

The plans have met fierce opposition from those who collect the gambling money, among whom are, perhaps rather surprisingly, charities. The Norwegian Red Cross, for example, has used slot machines for fund-raising since 1937.

Bernt Apeland, a spokesman for the Red Cross, said the proposals, if adopted in their present form, would make the charity's work impossible because slot machines raised90 per cent of its non-state income.