Nick Harding has done his fair share of running high street operations and he knows too well how important clarity on GMTS and new innovations such as cashless play is for the operators. But his main target for the new year is a Triennial Review. Without it, he says, land-based machines will “just become museum pieces”.

Now we have at least one year of fiscal stability I think that most operators are going to move ahead with investment that had, in the last six months been planned and then shelved, so business investment is going to be increasing – all of which is good for manufacturers, good for distributors and good for all those ancillary businesses that support the ecosystem.  

We have the review of Gaming Machine Technical Standards (GMTS) to look forward to soon so let’s hope that will be a tidying up, housekeeping exercise rather than anything more ominous.

Hopefully the industry requested amendments to game design features will be implemented in a helpful way and any changes to time and monetary limit setting will be pragmatic, bearing in mind that we are in the entertainment business.

Our lobbying over possible tax changes was clearly effective and the senior Bacta team, as the main industry representatives in the process, did a fantastic job.

 I think that we really must now press on and talk to government about the reinstatement of a Triennial Review process to lift stakes and link that to cashless pay, or are we going to sit on our hands and wait until a pound is worth about a farthing and land-based machines just become museum pieces?  

Just imagine how many pubs would still be open if beer prices had stayed static at 2009 levels – answers on House of Commons headed paper please!