I can’t remember the date of my last bet, and I am not sure what constitutes a last bet anyway. My problem was always fruit machines as we say in the UK, slots in the US and pokies in Australia. I was never interested in horse racing and although I had been to casinos once or twice and played the tables, I always fell back to the slots which were there in abundance. I think my last bet would have been on the lottery, which I kind of think of as very risky investment £2 per week for the chance to win millions (although more chance of being hit by an asteroid!)
But I know I haven’t bet since I started travelling full-time. What has interested me is seeing the different attitudes to gambling in the countries I have been through – from the obsession with horse racing in Ireland, carriage racing in France, scratch-cards in Portugal and slots in Spain and Germany. Each country seems to have a different attitude to gambling and a different way of doing things.
One of the reasons for considering full-time travel was to get myself away from the UK “slots” scene. The UK spends more on gambling than any other European country and the biggest part of that is “slots.” I did a test trip to the Baltic countries in the 1990s and remember being at a bus station in Latvia which had slot machines in the waiting area, but not understanding the language was too much of a barrier for me to even consider playing them. Now, thankfully, things have moved on so much, that it would probably take me hours to figure out how to play a machine in Germany or even in the UK now and that is enough to stop me from considering the idea.
I was lucky in that I stopped most of my gambling before online betting became a thing, so I don’t have to worry about taking my addiction with me on my laptop or phone, but I know that this is really pernicious and I do feel for people who have to cope with this. One of the problems is that the gambling companies with their algorithms will target known gamblers with ads at every opportunity and will offer free bets and other inducements in order to get someone back into playing mode. This is something which is the subject of a campaign by gambling with lives, (click here for more details) and other organisations.
So what did I notice about gambling whilst on my travels. Well that gambling is alive in nearly all of the European countries I have visited so far. The only country where it is not legal to gamble is Kosovo – which banned gambling in 2019 after a series of casino staff murders by rival gangs and it will remain banned until a review in 2029.
Let’s look at some of the countries I have visited.
Germany – Here, what you see of gambling is mainly on fruit machines (slots) and there is a 1 Euro stake maximum per spin which means that people are spending a lot of time on these machines. Most of the ones I saw were in sports bars which also allow smoking as opposed to more family oriented bars where smoking and gambling were not allowed.
I guess this was the biggest test of my travels as I found it difficult to find non-sports bars in some cities, such as Hannover and Osnabrück. The most frightening situation I found myself in was in the latter town. I found a bar to have a few beers on my final night there (I was just passing through) and I noticed that one guy was glued to the slot machine in there – putting in Euro after Euro. He seemed to be recording a pretty impressive win which I would have taken and left, but he wasn’t stopping. At one point he put his phone on the bar and asked the bar staff to charge it and it was taken into the back room. Then he kept playing and drinking heavily which is not a good combination. After some time, he realised he didn’t have his phone on him and was asking people if they had seen it – he had completely forgotten that he had handed it to the bar staff. But I remembered and reminded the barman who looked at me blankly (okay my German is not great, but I thought he knew some English.) The player was getting more and more upset and I was trying to make it clear where the phone was, when another customer who spoke perfect English told me to keep quiet if I wanted to get home safely that night. He then said the player was an idiot who “had all he deserved coming to him.” The gambler had at this point lost most of the “winnings” that were shown on the machine. I, of course, did leave. No point in putting my own safety at risk. If I had been in an English speaking country I think I would have phoned the police to alert them to the player’s plight. But I didn’t feel confident that my weak German would be understood, so all I felt I could do was to leave a bad review on Google Maps to warn people to stay away from the place. I think I learnt a lesson and I do feel for the poor guy trapped there without his phone.
Portugal – The interesting thing to me about Portugal is the absence of fruit machines / slots in pubs and cafes in the country. They do exist but can only be played in betting offices (for sports betting) and at casinos. The regulation also says they can be played on ships and aircraft, I have never thought of betting on a slot machine 30,000 miles in the air! So instead of betting on fruit machines it is not unusual to see people buying a coffee and several scratch cards and spending a fair few minutes scratching and sipping. I of course didn’t take part (I’ve never really seen the appeal of scratch cards) but I did occasionally witness someone get very excited for a few seconds until they scratch away and reveal that final (losing) number.
Italy – One of the things I noticed in Italy and especially in Sicily was the number of Bingo Halls around, something I had not seen since I had left the UK (and I think the popularity of Bingo is decreasing here – certainly there seem to be less halls around.) Apparently Italy claims to have invented the game and it is big business there as is all gambling; although the location of fruit machines is much less prevalent than in Spain where they seem to be in every bar.
Greece – The main thing I noticed in Greece was the prevalence of the OPAP (due to the Greek alphabet looking different to the English one, it looks more like ONAN.) This is the state backed bookmaking organisation (although a private company owns 51% of the shares) and has exclusive rights for bookmaking and the lottery in Greece up to 2030 when it is due to be reviewed. Interestingly, of the companies that challenged this over the last decade on the basis that it went against EU competition rules – virtually all of them were UK based, so when the UK left the EU those cases naturally failed. There is a bookmakers’ shop on all main streets (at least it feels that way) and the clientele are predominantly men and serves as a local meeting point with coffee and smoking happening outside some of them. There are no fruit machines in any of the cafes or bars there, which suits me fine.
Kosovo – what can I say about Kosovo … no gambling at all apart from the state lottery. Apparently it was banned when there were some gang killings in 2019. The ban is only to be reviewed in 2029. Albania is also looking at this, but at the moment there are betting shops around but no machines in bars or cafes, another reason for loving both countries.
So there you have it – a round up of the gambling scene in the countries I have been to so far. A lot of diversity and it may help people who are visiting who are also recovering to know what to look out for. And if you are looking to escape from gambling as much as possible – head to Kosovo!
Featured image, (top) from Slavonski Brod, Croatia on the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina. Gambling joints always seem to be more prevalent in border towns!
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