ID cards call for teenage gamblers

JTighter controls on arcade gambling machines were demanded yesterday by Gamblers' Anonymous, as MPs studied Home Office rules to restrict access to new machines offering up to pounds 10 cash prizes.

The police ought to issue identity cards to 18-year-olds to enable arcade managers to enforce the rules, said Paul Bellringer, of Gamblers' Anonymous and the UK Forum on Young People and Gambling. He was giving evidence to the Commons Select Committee on Deregulation, which is looking at Home Office rules to "fence off" the new machines within arcades when they are brought in later this year.

Mr Bellringer told MPs that in one region, the north-west, which includes Blackpool, four in 10 regular members, half under 25, have machine gambling problems where 10 years ago there were none. "Almost all have developed the problem between the ages of 12 and 14," he said. The evidence was that the enforcement of the existing voluntary code, barring under-16s, was "often quite lax".

David Evans, Tory MP for Welwyn Hatfield, asked: "Don't you think there's another side to that coin - amusement arcades help keep young people off the streets when they might be beating up old ladies?"

But Terence Neville, of the Amusement Arcade Action Group, attacked arcades as "seedy places". Mr Neville cited Home Office research which found young people became addicted to gambling in later life. John Sykes, Tory MP for Scarborough, questioned whether the Home Office order would not "impose massive new regulations" which would damage the amusement industry.

John Bollom, President of the British Amusement Catering Trades Association (BACTA), which represents arcade operators, said: "We accept that with cash prizes there have to be some restrictions."