TRASHFUTURE - Bonfire of the FOBT's (ft. Pierre Novellie and Matt Zarb-Cousin) Part 2

Episode Date: October 13, 2017

Riley (@raaleh) Milo (@milo_edwards) and, guest host Pierre (@pierrenovellie) conclude our marathon recording session with Matt Zarb-Cousin (@mattzarb), talking about Fixed Odds Betting Terminals (FOBTs), the digital slot machines gracing every betting shop in this geohell of ours... and how they're being beaten. We also talk about a brilliant new kitchen gadget with one moving part and zero moving brains. Like, share, and follow to OWN CAPITALISM Love, kisses, and revolution, Riley PS: I miss my old sweat pants so much

Not the last election, but the one before it, and also Brexit, was mildly surprising or slash not surprising at all to me because I have to meet the public so often, and in so many odd places, like on Friday I'm going to Matlock. Wait, what's that? Matlock is a town in Northern Derbyshire, so a lot of the gigs I do are just in towns that exist for whatever reason, in bits of England that I have. Identicate suburban towns. Yeah, a lot of them.

Yeah. Oh, God. Didcot. Fuck me. Didcot. But you were saying about how culturally, you know, Britain is kind of idiosyncratic someplace. Everywhere, every suburban town is the same.

Everyone looks the same. They were all built by Taylor Wimpy. The same shops, the same nightclub, dreadful nightclubs you've ever played in a nightclub before? Right. Oh, yeah. Back when Pierre was techno DJ. In Watford.

Oh. It's that thing of like, the thing with Didcot that was particularly weird was that you know how normally you see like these like endless, those houses with the kind of red roofs, kind of generic middle England suburban sprawl, and you go, okay, and I'd sort of cut the train station and kind of walk to the gig, which was in a sort of art centre, sort of the sprawl. And I was like, oh, and you had the big suburban sprawl because everyone needs to live here to work at the, oh, it was just nothing.

It was like a suburb to a city that had been teleported away. It's like, well, what the fuck are they? They're working. Where? Birmingham, I guess. Nottingham. Nottingham, Birmingham. Yeah, yeah.

It's a commuter town. The art centre was interesting because I was talking to the guys at the art centre because it was like the prices were low, but they were still selling quite shishy things. And there was, and I said, what, because I always try and get a warning before the gig, what's the kind of customer base, you know, who comes to this? And they said it was quite difficult actually in Didcot because actual Didcot is very poor, and so we can't price things too high because it's a community council funded arts thing and also we want customers, but also all the villages around Didcot are very fancy and

people want wasabi peas. So we have to come to this kind of mushy compromise that pleases no one. A mushy peas. Yeah, exactly. A mushy wasabi peas. Yeah, exactly. So it was like, that's why I was like, well, these tickets are very cheap, but also there are wasabi peas for like five pounds 50.

So who the fuck is this for? And the answer was for everyone, but no one in the middle. People who find expense comforting like, well, this night out is fine, but I've not spent enough money. Yeah, but also it's like, it's for people who made so much money in white collar jobs that they can live that kind of nice village kind of Midsummer Murders lifestyle. Well, they get a little like the deprived people who have to grow up next to the fucking department.

Do you think the house prizes in Midsummer were affected by that? I think that for a certain category of person, they went up. Probably. Finally, a town where my love of murder can be fully indulged. All the people on that very valuable to the right market. Hey guys, now that we're just having this like normal chill conversation around a table, what if we like picked up some microphones and did a podcast? We are already.

Oh, wait a minute. Wait a second. I've been tricked again. It's almost as though this would be Trash Future, the podcast about how the future is trash hosted by me. I was promised a better life and a job. Now I'm just on this podcast. Hosted by me, Riley, who could be found on Twitter at Raleh, R-A-L-E-H, and me, Milo Edwards,

you can find me on Twitter at Milo and Squared Woods or Instagram at the same. And sitting in for Charlie Palmer is our good friend, Pierre Novelli at Pierre Novelli, P-I-E-W-R-E and O-V-E-L-L-R-E. Yeah, you get a lot of wrong mail. I love bringing this up every time you're on. It's correct. I learned the phonetic alphabet purely to have my name spelled correctly over the phone more often.

You know, I talked off the hot part for a long India Echo Romeo Romeo Echo November Oscar victory Echo Lima Lima India Echo. The trouble with the phonetic alphabet is even if you know it's most other people. That's true. And it was a long quadruple barrel name and who and who is our guest today? But a certain Matt Zarb cousin has it going. I also have to spell my name out on the phone. I would love to a name like Jones or something.

He just I'll just Smith. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Smith, yeah, yeah, John Smith. Oh, yeah, I get asked if my name is a stage name a lot like I'd pick a name like this to help my career rather than just being called Alan jokes. Alan jokes would really probably be a good comedian name. I think so. John comedy is welcome to the stage. My name is my name is my name is William Standoop.

It's Swedish. Well, to bring it to bring in a fun and relatable ox progenic dode. Oh, yes, I love these fun and relatable ox progenic toad. So you were in your final year when I was in my first year and I just started doing stand up and people like, oh, you should go and see this guy, Pierre Nevelli. He's really good at stand up. And so I and I hail the name Pierre Nevelli and I have this sort of image in my head of this kind of like grass isle European kind of like Galois.

Yeah, you know, loose. Yeah, detached. And then I encounter it. Well, I mean, for the benefit of the listener, sort of like a man who's generally agreed to look like a Viking man who says things like we need eight stout men. I need oak for my ship. I will add that we haven't see will stop. We haven't yet spoken about this.

But before we jump to the main content of the show, I do want to add that after we did, we hung out in Edinburgh and did an Edinburgh. Yes, Milo and I for a few days later, we're just doing Pierre voice. Yes, this is becoming more and more of a thing. Which is oh, oh, oh, yes. Coming up to the pub saying I need I need some stout ales for some stout men. We say we sail for Newfoundland on the morrow. Your Pierre voice sounds more like just like British Army Colonel from the 1950s,

organising the killing of the normal. I want a more colonial twang to this impression. There has been nothing in the history of my participation in this podcast that has suggested that I do good accents. That is very true. So you can't even do a Canadian accent and that's where you're from. That's guys, guys. We are, I think, particularly blessed to have Matt Zarb with us today.

Matt Zarb, cousin Matt Zarb, feeling hashtag blessed today, feeling very hashtag blessed. Nice to be here. Which is apparently actually a high five emoji. That's a what I know ways. God, apparently this prayer hands emoji was actually intended to be a high five emoji that makes sense. The death of the author, even emoji. It's the dapper laughs of emoji that makes sense, though, given that it's from Japan, though, right?

Because they don't pray like that. How do they pray in the Shinto religion? I think you put you put your head forehead on the floor in front of the shrine. It's in a triangular. You put your head in a triangular. That's what I do in the morning. Just like, I hate that this is primarily on what did emoji come from Japan? Yeah, well, the ones we use now did.

Yeah, that's all I call good anime. That's what you know. There's that weird goblin mask one. I can't remember. That's an only bitch. That's it. It's a thing in Japan. So they look at that and go, oh, we know what that is. Whereas we go goblin mask. I should clarify.

Why is there a used panties emoji? I should change this tentacle. Emoji is very disturbing. Well, this is an emoji, but I should clarify it when I was like a teenager. I was like, fat and really into anime. We did you own a fedora? Nice. That's perfect. I was considering buying one.

How into anime? I used to purchase on eBay all of the seasons of like neon Genesis, even I was hoping it was going to be a body pillow. Yeah, you liked it a lot. I have to be honest, so guys, I picked out two things for us to talk about today. The first is a dumb product, as is trash, future tradition. The second is we are going to be talking to Matt about like the single worst product that has ever been created by late stage capitalism,

which is fixed odds, betting terminals or F.O.B.T.s. Essentially, to give a preview, electronic ways to just give away money to large companies. Yeah. Oh, so the Amazon discussed this a bit earlier. Am I correct in saying that it's like video blackjack, video reliant? That's right. Yeah. In betting shops. Right. And it's like a sort of it's like an arcade. It looks like one.

Yeah, but it's like touch screen machine interface and you can put notes in. Because I've seen one in a casino where it had like a kind of simulacrum of a dealer as well. Like a projection of like a real person. So it was really it was very eerie. It was it was it was like the gambling version of them, those horrible fucking 2D robot women in train stations who go watch out for the escalator and you trip on the escalator because you've just seen a horrifying robot and that's distracted you fall into the uncanny valley and break

your ankle. Exactly. Before we get into that, I found a product guys that is one of the dumber ones we've ever talked about. I'm aware I say this in every show. OK. Yeah. It's called the Euclid. I don't know what you guys think that might be. There's a Greek philosopher.

But just to clarify, shout out to Hussein Kasvani, who sent this into me as a dumb product of the week. You just like you just like reminding people that you know Hussein Kasvani. Shut up. What if Hussein Kasvani unfollows me? God. What if he thinks I'm too keen? But guys, the Euclid, the Euclid. Well, yeah, you say it.

So, yeah, Greek philosopher and mathematician, Euclidean geometry. Yeah, big on angles and she liked angles. Yeah, but didn't like Saxons famously. Didn't care for them. Medium on jutes. And anyone got any actual ideas on Euclid, given it's unlikely that late stage capitalism invented a Greek mathematician. I can imagine late stage capitalism reinventing geometry like guys.

What if what if Uber, but right angles? Geometry disrupted the Euclid, the Euclid. I'm going to give you guys a hint. We're tech nerds with a passion for cooking. And we've created a better blank. It's an object made from some kind of it's not a person. That's right. And it's made of some kind of nominally novel material.

Like it's been around for a while. But actually, it's like why not try asbestos again? See what it does now. I would love to see an asbestos advertising campaign for your side. What's what's it called again? It's called the Euclid and it's we're tech nerds with a passion for cooking. And we created a better a better blank Euclid's patented shape delivers a level of accuracy that no traditional blank can match.

Is it a lid? Is it a kind of lid? That'd be amazing. A level of a really geometric hair cut. It's a lid that you put in a pot. You hit a button and just that would be cool. But no, that's not what it is. It's not what it is.

I'm going to go ahead and just say what it is now. Because I love when this happens. My favorite thing is when Silicon Valley or the innovation economy, which is dumb, uses its aesthetic and language to invent something that already exists and doesn't need to be reinvented. There's not enough stuff to make money out of. We need to invent notional things. Yeah, we're tech nerds.

The passion for cooking and we created a better measuring cup. Oh, right. Because the main thing about recipes is that they're so bang on. They're like perfect equations and there's no out to being a chef at all. No, of course. No, no. How does it measure better? I'm intrigued.

Tell me. I mean, that's the thing. I'll promise you this. I have been reading this things Kickstarter for most of the afternoon. Because the real limiting factor. As far as I can tell, I mean, I'm not I'm not an expert. But the real limiting factor in measuring before none of us are an expert on anything is no is not so much, you know,

like the accuracy of the measuring cup itself. But like the human eye, I feel is that you can pretty much print a line pretty accurately on a measuring cup where where you have to fill it to. But like who's who's like, you know, I guess you could argue that like if you whipped up eggs in a measuring cup when you pour it off and there is a residue of egg that is un-pourable and therefore you've lost a micrometer egg and that's going to fuck up the whole birthday cake. Un-pourable egg.

Yeah, at last. A new product. Is it is it is it that it's non-stick? Well, no, what it is is just that it is it's a bit of a funny shape. Yeah. And then it has funny shapes, same gradients. So the weights and measures haven't changed. OK, we're still considering having it measure as your flower in like cubits.

Three euclids of flower. Yeah, it's great. It sounds scale. Stout men of Charlie. Yeah, it's it's just it's vaguely wide at the top and narrow at the bottom. OK. And that's all it is. It's a it's a slightly conical measuring cup.

But if you want to know the the tech press is absolutely coming themselves for it. Why? They must say why? Because the guy used to work at Google in your tight pajama bottoms. Yet more references to the previous show of the pajama bottoms that routinely made me come. You know what listeners, you might not like this show, but objectively, you'd enjoy it more if you listened to every show attentively. You'd like this show more if you'd like the show enough.

Yeah. Before we were recording on that before you complain. Before we were recording, Matt and I had such a good, smart conversation. And now I'm talking to my old sweatpants that made me come. Fuck. And you could have measured how much more accurately. I need to check. I need to feel bad. Did Riley give you the idea that this was a smart podcast before you? No, no, no. We'll find this. That's good. That's OK.

So I was very clear that this was really stupid. So but so what are the techniques saying is good about it? Because there must be a quality that is being talked about at some point here, right? There can't just be nothing. Are they playing on this kind of perception that millennials love brands and they want to get the right measuring cup? That's the one you need. I'm going to get that one.

We're going to get the Euclid. We're actually have that. We're going to have the disruptive measuring cup, but it only but it only measures like ingredients that you buy in special bags from the company. It only measures juicero. But they they they're not all they're not pre measured in the bags. They come in random quantities. Not because as we were talking earlier,

in order to purely give the Euclid something to do, you just order just some flour and then a truck turns up at your door and you're like, oh, good God, the smartest thing to do would be to be selling the Euclid passively and actively and aggressively getting every single recipe book publisher to change all of their measurements to Euclid's now is then guess who has to buy Euclid's now, but you realize that's actually how like a small number of companies sees control of the railroads in the West, right? I thought it was Chinese slaves.

That too. Yeah. OK, so a combination of those two things, a couple of things, but it was actually like the private private lobbying on public bodies to enforce particular standards that would make it impossible to be railway gauges. Precisely. Yes, yes, yes. OK, yeah. But also is why the Schlieffen plan didn't work, which means that I'm at least ambivalent about it. I thought the Schlieffen plan didn't work because the Germans just liked Paris too

much. They were like, well, no, we're just going straight. Just keep going straight. It's like, no, the plan was to then go left. Oh, fuck the plan. I like straight. That was the plan of the US Democrats in 2016, but I guess they didn't do it enough. I saw this great that there was like this amazing like sub tweet that I saw where was someone saying like girls like the way of any men who criticize Hillary Clinton, because whatever they say about Harry,

sooner or later, they'll be saying it about you. It's like, yeah, I'm always asking my girlfriend why she didn't campaign more aggressively in Wisconsin. I just want to say we haven't really talked about what issue the Euclid claims to resolve, which is that normal measuring cups, ordinary measuring cups, just any cup with some lines on it. You will miss, mis-measure a tiny microscopic amount that won't change your dish. Redstone's Cup Euclid Resolves Your Dishes Explosives.

Redstone's Cup Euclid resolves this Riley editorializing non Riley editorializing done issue with traditional measuring cups. It says the smaller the amount, the harder it is to measure accurately. That's the same with Oh, see, so because it tapers down, it scales such that a milliliter of something is clearly visible. But oh, no, but hang on. Wait a minute, something we haven't talked about yet.

We have to remember that in America, if you've ever looked up an American recipe, everything's measured in fucking cups and fluid ounces. Yeah, but also it's like add three cups of flour. Who's fucking cup? Just tell it grams. So this in fairness, in America, they definitely need a better way of measuring things than a cup. They've imagined there's an amazing I take it back.

I'm buying a Euclid story about this, which is that it was some point in the mid 2000s, NASA was sending a probe to one of the planets. And but the they outsourced one of those planets. They outsourced all of the maths for the trajectory to the European Space Agency, who did it all in SI units. But apparently NASA do everything in fucking feet and inches. You are shitting me. Apparently not.

And they had to and they had to convert all of the trajectory data from the European Space Agency to feet and inches. Someone fucked it and it like and it missed the planet and crashed into an asteroid and destroyed like a billion dollar probe. Guys, if I knew to imperial measurements, if only if only they'd had a Euclid, a normal again, a normal measuring cup that purports to solve a non problem. How much is it really helpful?

Well, you can't get it yet. What units do you want that in? Twenty four Wampum. No, just just in Guineas, just to get one. No, you can't sell Italians. To get Guineas is slang for it. It's a slur for Italians. It's a very niche one.

Yeah, fucking racist America used to be as a you're the wrong kind of definitely why they love they loved racism so much. They ran out of actually different races to be racist. So like we're going to have to subdivide the white people. I cannot wait until liberals finally compromise with like the chud right enough that phrenology is finally welcome back as a STEM subject. What's the chud right? The right.

Just the right. OK, that sounds like a byproduct of some sort of agricultural process, doesn't it? Is the byproduct of crafting vegan man. Another reference to last week's pod. You got it. Let's just do a director's cut of last week. Yeah, but we're going to do a lot of comments on last week's peak behind which to us is like the hour goes pod which time is relative.

So anyway, that's the Euclid. It's twenty four dollars for a measuring cup, but it purports to solve a non problem who wants to invest her. You can measure the Kool-Aid before you drink it. Oh my goodness. Fuck you, Jonestown.

And and on that hot take, I think it's time to a successful start up. I think it's time to take a quick break and then we're going to get into something actually like smart, which is unusual for us, but becoming more frequent. See you in a sec, everyone. That's like what if a Mr. Kipling came with like blackface? God, what do you mean when they had gollywags on the jam when they had

gollywags on the jam like 15 years ago, even that was probably 20 years ago. When did they get rid of gollywags on jam? I can't remember that ever being. I mean, I know it was the case, but not in my lifetime. I mean, it was definitely on the jam. No, that was a real bad real thing. Yeah, there was a real thing. I'm going to look this up now.

OK, let's all guess when Robertsons, the guys who make jam, officially retired their golly walk. I reckon it's eighty seven eighty seven any more bids you said not in your life. The same year that Mordland College, Oxford, led in women coincidence. So what they were like a conference call between the dons of Mordland College, Oxford and Robertson's jam. It's like, well, with my two remaining bastions of the really unacceptable Milo. Milo, you'll do it if you do Milo.

You're getting patriarchy wrong. Oriole was the last Oxford College for letting women. It didn't in ninety four. Really? Yeah. Why is it four? Oh, my God. OK, so eighty seven. But hey, all lives matter. When did St. Hilda's let in men, huh?

Golly walk off jam. When? I'm going to say ninety two ninety two eighty seven ninety two. I'm going to say nineteen eighty. Nineteen eighty. Two thousand and two. No, nine eleven. Yes, mate. That was a place they listen to Craig David's born to do it. And they were like, maybe these blackchappies aren't so bad when production

stopped in two thousand and one over twenty million gollies had been sent out as part of their, I don't know, sending out people, sending people gollywags for marketing purposes. Why does a jam company need racism? Well, you know, you know what the weird thing about that is? It's obviously it's unacceptable, but you can kind of see how it happens in the sense that like, right, in a really racist time in the late 90s century, they put the gollywag on the jam, right?

And then after a while, it just becomes way more associated with the jam than it does with anything else. And so people almost don't notice it. They're like, well, that's just the jam logo, you know, they're not really thinking like this is a racist depiction of a black person. They're just thinking like, this is how jam looks. They've not really questioned that. There's a silly cartoon man on the jam.

He's probably a coal miner or something. Bright red lips. But the only way you could really change that is if if someone came into the job and said, actually, I've reviewed this and we probably should take it off. I mean, you can't be in the job years past and go, I think we should get rid of this now. Why didn't you say it before? You're too heavily invested into the gollywags. I think it was everyone was waiting for someone else to say it first.

Yeah, it was like two decades of like. And these jars will have the gollywag on them. Yes, yeah. They were trying to judge if each other would be angry if they said no. Yeah. Do you think they should? I think I'm of no opinion. But if you think they should, we can. I'm I didn't say that.

That's basically what happened in the Politburo after Starley. I was like, well, of course, I always thought it was a bad idea. Yeah. We have been running on this weird straight of trash future podcasts where we've had people who are actually knowledgeable or smart or coherent come on. And today. One of the reasons we brought

Matzab cousin on was to talk about what I think is probably. And you all may agree with me. The most hideous and extractive version of late stage capitalism, which is fixed odds, betting terminals or Fubbies, Fubbies, Fubtees, they certainly have the most terrible acronym. It's dreadful, isn't it? I'm loads to confidently claim they're the worst extractive thing of late stage capitalism because I really back them to come up with something worse.

But I mean, they're definitely bad. I mean, so I just want to explain quickly. Yeah, if you can tell me what these things are. Yes. So betting shops have existed for many decades. Yes. And betting shops are for taking bets. So a bet is a wager on an event that takes place outside of the premises you're putting the bet on. Is this like a legal definition? Yes. OK, cool.

So if it's a football match or a race or a sports event, you are putting a wager on something that's taking place outside the premises. OK, so that's where betting is different to gaming. Gaming is a wager on an event takes place within the premises. I have no idea of this casino game, right? So like roulette in this inner casino, the wager, the event takes place there. So and if you're in a like an actual casino as opposed to a betting shop, would gaming cover poker?

Poker is his own player versus player poker. That's a that's a that's its own. OK, yes. That's a real sport. You've got to have ripped abs. So the bookies weren't allowed gaming. So what they did was they come up with a machine. They wanted to get roulette in the betting shops because roulette's a highly addictive

game. And they said, well, actually, the server that determines the result of each bet is outside the premises. Holy fuck. So therefore, when you press bet on the machine, it's actually it's actually it's not gaming, it's betting because the server is outside the premises. That's how they exploited a loophole in the law. And then that was in 2001, where they put roulette on the machines. And they were technically illegal at the time.

And then the new Labour government being the I was going to say. Corporate saps that they are. Surely no center left government would allow this to come about. When they first put in it was unlimited stakes, like bet as much as you wanted every 20 seconds on these machines. And then the Labour government came in and they said, well, you can have them, but we'll cap the stake at one hundred pounds. That's a nice call.

That's sensible. We'll have to stake it like, you know, your reasonable lunch, we'll cap this stake at what we consider to be a reasonable lunch or your entire week's benefit take. Yeah, so a hundred pounds every 20 seconds allowed four of them per shop. That's what they say. And then, of course, what they what they do now is they open as many shops as they can, get as many of these machines in because they generate in London,

each machine generates one thousand five hundred pounds a week profit. So in one shot profit, yes, in one shot, they're generating six thousand pounds profit just from the machines. And they've turned into effectively turned into like digital casinos. We had we had traditionally tried to keep casino games in casinos and because we're not prohibitionists, but we want to restrict access to what is a harmful product, right? So therefore, the idea that it's on every high street, it's thirty five thousand of these machines, it's a bit of disaster.

My job used to take me to like towns like Alderley Edge, like I've lived in Oxford and stuff, like there aren't a lot of gaming shops or betting shops. If you split the local authority areas into quartiles by sort of most deprived to least deprived, then there are twice as many in the most deprived areas compared to the least deprived. So they do target the most deprived areas. That's because poorer people, you know, if you've got five pounds to last you the week, it does make eminent sense to gamble it.

Yeah. You know, and then you get into more trouble, more debt. There's porn brokers next door. So it's causing huge amount of social problems. But I think the main thing is like how technology in gambling, especially, I mean, probably everywhere, but definitely in gambling, is making it worse for the consumer. So like all it all it does, technology is speed up the process of losing money and make the product more addictive.

And there is actually a lab that William Hill sponsor in Shortage. In Shortage? Yeah. But it's so fucked up. Just a stone throw away. But Shortage is supposed to be this like new, young, interesting vibrant. I mean, it's not, but it's supposed to be this. It's a silicon value.

Yeah, it was supposed to be. And it's the silicon roundabout, whatever we call it. It's fucking containing the William Hill poverty exacerbation laboratory. Which is my laboratory. And some of the things that they come up with is I don't know if you've watched Black Mirror, but it reminds me, you know, it wouldn't look out of place in that, like where you have this kind of virtual reality headset and you can start.

You're walking around a casino and there's like, you know, half naked women and stuff and just create this immersive environment where you completely lose yourself and lose touch of reality, at which point you're more vulnerable to losing more money. So it's the whole immersive nature. There's even one actually where you can bet on a horse because I have this thing called virtual racing now with what? Yeah, where you go and usually the the FOBT game would be something like roulette,

something where they can say, OK, well, there's there's a 51 percent chance you'll lose and then we'll pay out, you know, et cetera, et cetera. So we can predict that we'll just make this much money. But virtual racing. So you can you don't you can't just bet on where you can bet on live racing, which is like every 15, 20 minutes, or you can bet on virtual racing, which is like a graphic simulation of a race where you can bet on and what they're trying to do now is vegan racing, vegan racing, give people headsets

so they can like be the first person, the jockey of the virtual race that they've bet on. What? Yeah, this is the stuff they're developing now. All right. So you're essentially playing like a really expensive virtual reality horse racing game in which you have very minimal control. So they're just they're trying to love the future. So they're trying to like gamify a game. Yes.

The whole thing, the whole like culture is a corporate culture is this isn't betting. It's not gambling. It's gaming. They're trying to blur the lines between. That's where you get the social games and transitions into. OK, trying to blur those lines. So make the they think they make the experience of betting more interactive or more immersive and people will enjoy it more.

But actually what will happen is they'll just probably lose more money, which they want. Yeah. Well, I mean, maybe they will enjoy it more, but that's why they'll end up losing more money. Right. So, yeah, it's just just before we go further, I think some listeners may be wondering why Matt Zarbakuzin, famous labor strategist and co-owner of such terms as Meltz, Lug and Centrus Dad,

is talking about FOBT's. What's your experience with these things? Not great. I think I got addicted to them when I was about 16 and for four years over the period of about four years, I lost about 20,000 pounds. Got addicted very quickly. Yeah, she's now a month's rent. Yeah. What is it about them that makes them so addictive?

Well, I think it's I think it's a combination of factors like the accessibility, the speed of play so you can bet every 20 seconds. As I said, I heard you sort of mention that betting intervals because with horse racing, you bet every 15 minutes. Yeah, that's right. But with an FOBT, you can bet much more frequently. Yeah, that literally every 20 seconds, repeat bet, go again. And I think the nature of roulette is it will give you the early wins.

Yeah. So the wins are what draw you back. You know, it is there is an element of rationality to it in the sense that you think you can win it back or you think you can win next time, but in the long run, obviously, there's a house edge. So you're always going to lose. Of course. Yeah. For full disclosure, I gamble sometimes, but it's mostly player versus player. Yeah, but sometimes other things, but mostly having a career as a comedian.

Well, that's the biggest gamble I've ever. And the house edge is massive. Oh, that it's a huge green zero on that roulette board. Fucking absolutely massive. The house is the circle is just a green zero of a frowning audience member in a regional pub. If there are any silver linings in the FOB T story, I noticed that there has been some legislation on them recently or there will be.

Yes, there is a review. Yeah, the government are due to respond to that this month, the end of this month. And that will make some recommendations on the stakes. So they're going to reduce it. They just don't know what to what. Yeah, hopefully we're campaigning for two pounds. I don't see why it should be anything more than two pound every, you know, every spin that's like most because more than most people can afford.

I don't want to spoil anything, but we are we might read an article whose main justification of FOB T's is they're just a bit of fun and it's not expensive. The it's that always that battle, isn't it, with an addictive substance where gambling has always seemed to me a lot like booze in the sense that oh, there's people say prohibition doesn't work for things. And you go, well, it can work very well. For example, if you're in the UK, it can work very well for, say,

something like cocaine, which has to come from far away in a tropical climate where the plant grows, but gambling and booze are two things that you can summon up out of fucking nowhere. You can make booze out of socks. Like it's not hard to ferment things. And people do try and so like prohibition in America was like, well, I've got some fruit from the supermarket so I can have brandy in like a month. And gambling is the same in the sense that if you make it illegal in the same

ways, if you make booze illegal, you just get a lot of very creative, very violent, unsavory types, finding ways around it, especially with regard to the savory and deeply wonderful world of horse racing. Dog racing. So I see it. I mean, and there is, you know, prohibition doesn't work for that reason. But if you're going to make something, legitimize something, then it makes sense to then regulate it properly.

Yes, yes, absolutely. Where the gambling legislation is. In the same way that it's like you shouldn't be able to go and buy ethanol. No, it's like the purest form of booze, especially a huge jug that you can just have and just have a good time in the park, especially in terms of regulating gambling, the the format of FOB T's quite lends itself to regulation because it's fixed. If the government could force them to be fair or force a lower stake,

they could really know this is essentially a tax largely on poor people. Then they could essentially implement a progressive policy quite easily. Look, the machines generate one point eight billion pounds a year, gross gambling yield and all that about that's more than that. Mayonnaise startup was valued at one in a third mayonnaise startups a year. And the government takes about 25 percent of that. But you have to think that if the money was spent elsewhere, it would create more jobs, probably generate more revenue.

Well, you're in really deprived areas. How much of that money is money being paid out by the government in various benefits and subsidies anyway? And then anything being paid back to the government has its take from the owners of the gambling businesses anyway? I mean, the thing I find interesting about this is that like it's an interesting one gambling in that with stuff like booze and drugs, you can kind of educate people about like you're talking just about stuff that might or might not be right.

You can educate people about like the basic because it's more like a fact base. Like, OK, if you drink alcohol, this is what happens, right? Whereas like even most really smart people are really bad at reasoning with probability. Just people are incredibly bad at it. There's only like a few statisticians in the country who are actually good at understanding this shit. And so like it's impossible to really educate people other than like you're being fucked, you can't understand like the people making the law can't really

understand the details of how you're being fucked, but that is how it's working. Yeah, exactly. And I think the whole responsible gambling thing feeds into that because that whole narrative just places all of the emphasis on the individual gamble rather than the products that are being offered. And if you're then it then you have to get then you get into terrain like, oh, well, is there even such a thing as responsible gambling? Isn't all gambling fundamentally irresponsible? As you say, you're getting fucked.

But that's the but that is ultimately like so like, for example, there's like I'd make the university like know a shitload about football and they make a lot of money betting on football because not because they know a lot about probability, but just because they're good at predicting the outcomes of football matches. There's a fundamental difference between knowing a lot about football and using that to your advantage and doing something where there is you're playing odds that are against you, fixed odds that are against you. Yeah, yeah, but designed to keep you doing it, designed to give you just enough

because ultimately if your take is going to be 51 percent, but you give away 0.5 of a percent to winnings, your take is still 50.5 percent. You're still profitable. And but with that, but giving away that 0.5, you could have a smaller percentage of a much larger number. Yeah, that's exactly right. And that's what that's the distinction between betting and betting. You can in theory win in the long run. Yeah, you can't rule it.

Yeah, it's literally impossible. I used to have my old my old flat used to be. On this muse beside Tottenham Court Road, right? And if we were going out drinking quite late, there were only two places with the lads, et cetera, et cetera, because we're legends. The only two places that were still open were the Spearman Rhino Notable Strip Club and Gala Casino. Stacked against you there.

Gala Casino, Notable Casino. Yeah. And so I remember I used to go in and I used to just see Gala Casino at Tottenham Court. Yeah. Not Spearman. Fucking hell. Look, I'm an idiot. I'm not a sucker.

I don't know which one that means I went in. I really believe that Matt has chosen to lower the tone here, which I feel is really open the floodgates. Yeah, that really really usually one of us will for you usually will lower the job. Usually me. But regardless, I just remember going in there and seeing people hunched over in like large coats, just desultrally putting money on the table. Which is being picked up by women who are scantily clad.

Not even. It's a two different two different establishment smile. Your joke is not going to work here. Yeah, I mean, at least in the Spearman Rhino, you know, there's no un-clarity there about exactly how you're wasting your money. So anyone know the little publication, The Spectator? Oh, I've heard of it. I was on their podcast.

Wait, why Johnson's first of all, they have their podcast, isn't just a Moscow Telegram. It's an ear trumpet. I said something about Douglas Murray on Twitter, and then I got disinvited from future podcast. Douglas Murray is their golden boy. I'm impressed that you managed to be on the podcast and not offend them enough to be disinvited during that time.

I got to the second one. That's it too. Between just just so our listeners know between melts and slugs. What's the spectator? Well, it is a slug in that we're looking at looking at like that. Yeah. Boris Johnson actually I think used to edit the spectator. Oh, good. He did. Yeah, that's true.

So it's basically slug. This is the sluggy is podcast podcast podcast and publication. It's a podcast that will eat your hostess. It's good. But if you if you salt it enough, I hear that it just vanishes. Everybody ready to for me to read a little bit of an article from the spectator and maybe sprinkle just just a just a touch, just a touch of salt for flavor on this particular slug. Perfect. Yeah. This article is called

in praise of the fixed odds betting terminals. Amazing. Of all the things to be in praise. Oh, God, isn't that Kipling really scraping the barrel? This is like it's the same people who are the ones who say, well, actually, the British Empire did a lot of good for Africa. The charge of the shite brigade. God, I wish you were recording the trailer for the shite man's birth. A hundred McKenzie tracksuits gleaming.

The subtitle of the article is the moral crusaders have gambling in their sites. But if F O B T's go racings in come stream will shrink. Amazing. That is not racing. Well, can I just say quickly, you know, the there was a moral crusade against gambling in the 50s and the 60s. And the opposition to gambling was based on the kind of Christian methodism. Yeah. Yeah. But now we know that gambling is as addictive as drugs.

So therefore it is kind of a public health opposition. Yeah. It's a science based opposition. Not when it's that it's immoral. It's funny about that actually was that like calling it a moral crusade is like they're trying to make that a pejorative term. When, in fact, like it is kind of a moral crusade in a way, because it's like saying, well, the way in which these companies are stealing money from poor people by deceiving them is kind of immoral.

So like all moral crusades about like God, these bloody American soldiers on a moral crusade to liberate the death camps. Isn't it interesting, though, that moral crusade used to be the sort of thing that people like us would throw at some sort of Mary White House or whatever. And like a moral crusade to bring back longer skirts like that. But now over time and like free speech as well as a kind of political argument, they've just swapped sides and now they're sort of being thrown back. Well, it's like a sort of weird pendulum thing happening.

In effect, sort of the the modern left is almost in one of the most disadvantageous positions possible, because we've won every cultural battle that we've ever been presented with. We've won or are winning VHS versus beat a man. That's right. That's right. I don't care if it's better picture quality. What happens ultimately headed enough Saracens to ensure that VHS was what happened is that the right still maintains political and economic power, but no one respects them.

They're completely laughable. And so from this position of control, from this position of power, they claim this sort of victimization that there are moral crusades against them, of their freedom, of their just generally living their best life, owning a shop that, you know, using some videos takes benefits money from poor people. And then it's somehow oppressive. And so but ultimately it's this it's

a sort of false weakness that's designed to sort of elicit pity from people who are ultimately red faced centrist dads. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. It's a big complex. Yeah. Well, what kind of let's not get into the whole what do you mean by centrist debate? Because centrist dad is for anyone who hasn't been on Twitter recently. Seen it popping up a lot, but no one's been able to define it. Well, just anyone has a centrist dad.

Dads tend to be right wing in my experience. Like that's the joke, isn't it? Like you either have loads of suburban right wing dads or the one crazy. Guys, you guys are making yourself look stupid right now, because we actually have one of the main coiners of leftist quote unquote slurs against the center and right with us. Early adopter, certainly. I don't think I coined it quite.

But yeah, I mean, look, there is a generation of middle aged men who grew up in the new labor era. They were they were old enough to sort of witness or be around for when the Berlin Wall fell down and the end of communism and the end of history and Fukuyama. And then there was a kind of general consensus about how you win an election. And it's, you know, you have to try and win over Tory voters, and you can only win elections from the center and all this kind of stuff.

Anyway, they did quite well out of the status quo. They'd quite well out of that type of politics. And now they're property owning, middle management, you know, done quite well out of the system. And they can't understand why all these kids don't get it. Don't get that you actually win elections from the center. And you actually our way of doing things is the best. And why don't you just do things like we did?

And it's a kind of like they just, I don't know, they don't understand why young people are turning to some to an alternative to something different. And that kind of aggression that you see on Twitter from these people is a reaction to that. And their most favorite word is actually. Yeah, we'll say something like that's the Internet's favorite word. Let's be clear. These guys, these guys also at some point, either they were a lot of blush or they had a significant amount of sort of, you know, alcohol related issues

in the sort of late 90s, because there is not a single more red faced group of people. But see, this is my this is my question, because I've seen the term pop up. But then I've just seen people taking the same picture that used to be for sort of fascist Brexiteers of all those red faced men from question time. And they're going, oh, actually, they're also centrist dads. And you go, well, no, because pick one. I've got quite a good thread of them. Yeah, I'm sure that I think it's one of those groups of people.

I'm just theorizing that they definitely exist and they exist probably prominently. But I'm not sure how like that there are a lot of them in the in the day to day life of the average person. In my in my mentions, honestly, I had. Oh, yeah. But I mean, I mean, you are the kind of person that would bring them out to play. That's that's that's like some people could say like, well, I'm assuming that every fourth person in this restaurant is an anime wanking porn Nazi.

Well, no, it's not a technically fully representative of the population. Richard Branson, I think, is the ultimate centrist dad. Yes, he's the classic. Your dad, the billionaire, he's someone who he's someone who believed he's earned his balloon ride and that, you know, if the working class didn't want to, you know, get killed by him dropping small lead weights off of his balloon that they should have worked a little harder and he's not racist or anything. No, obviously, but, you know, I mean, it's if some people have to starve and use

food banks like, look, that's the price of winning elections. Richard Branson has a fucking mad career like, well, what would I advise the young man today? Well, of course, what you need to do is start a massive empire where you sell both CDs and also perplexingly own an airline and a network of gyms. And it's all named after someone who's never had sex. So it's all very Catholic and you're kind of easy jet, but called Pope Francis.

You know, we've been really distracted from is this spectator article. Everything. So the spectator article in praise of fixed odds, betting terminals, it opens with the following sentence. Let's see if you can guess where it's going from the first sentence. Racing is an expensive sport to stage. OK, to stage. Is there not even to like make it happen, but to fake it?

It's like the moon landing. Courses and grandstands have to be maintained. Health and safety regulations have to be observed. Human and horse ambulances have to drive down European Union. It's expensive to put on horse races. I mean, I don't disagree. Today, those subjects wouldn't even have died. That's the real tragedy.

Possible spectators up headlines. If we value horse racing, there's a lot of heavy lifting being done on that if I guess I guess you we value horse racing and that horse racing is like a weird crossfit guy shouting a bar up above his head. Horses are the original crossfit. Yeah, then maybe gambling traps dependence on FOB T's is not bad. Wait, what's the logic here?

Because more than poor people, horses, you ever met a horse with money? No, I've never I've never met a horse with that staying rich. Matt, you want to hop in on this one? This is the this is the last throw of the dice for the bookmakers, right? Is they trying to say that please save our machines? Don't do anything to the FOB T's because you'll kill racing. But actually, the money that's lost in the machines doesn't go towards the levy, the horse racing levy.

That is the money that's bet on racing that goes towards that levy. So this is a complete non-secretary. It's not analogous. What is the levy or was this really discussed? It's what it's what the bookies pay to keep horse racing going. But oh, God, I didn't know that was like a tax. Yeah, well, because I have to subscribe to the broadcast channel. That's basically and but it's only the over the counter betting that goes

towards that rather than the money that goes into the machines. But what they're saying is if you reduce the stake on the machines, the number of shops will close, racing will suffer. But actually what's happened is these machines now account for 60% of the profits in the betting shop. So you're taking money away from racing. But anyway, this whole thing is predicated on the idea that everyone really cares about racing, which I think is probably not that many people.

Well, it's essentially what owns about the spectators campaign is that they're saying we need to allow the most incredibly regressive form of gambling in order to subsidize like recruitment consultants going and getting drunk at Ascot in big hats. Yeah, it's the sport of kings subsidized by the most the poorest people in the country. So the idea that it's the sport of kings is so jokes. Now, it's like Ascot is entirely full of like idiot only way as Essex people that I went to school with vomiting in a bush and I'm with the fucking queen.

Well, let's be clear. It's the sport of Middle Eastern Kings. That's undeniable. That's true. The article goes on to say now no rational racing fan would fail to acknowledge that gambling addictions sometimes afflict those least able to afford a loss. I hate to do the stat thing, but you just have to look at the last health survey like forty three percent of Bob T players are either problem or at risk gamblers.

So like it is a significant proportion of the anyway. Sorry. Well, because this is all that it seems like it's so this essentially to use that analogy from earlier, would you say that that means that the F.O.B.T.s are are to gambling? What crack drugs? Oh, no, I would like I was going to say like in terms of the booze analogy from earlier and that it's not illegal. But if you buy

Tesco Valley, vodka, you're not a socialite having a party. Yeah, if you know, like betting on the Grand National is like rose. This is like, you know, drinking meth. Because yes, it's white lightning. So there's some types because like in the same sense that there's sometimes a gambling white lightning coming up in the rear. This in the same sense. So that there's some types of gambling that are very heavily problematic.

Like these was at forty forty three percent. So then, yeah, you could argue maybe forty three percent of people who buy white lightning shouldn't be buying any booze when it's like and it's obvious. It must be just the trigger effect of the gamut that keeps people doing it on the basis that like there's nothing entertaining about it. Like you're literally just putting money into a machine. Same like I read. And then maybe getting more or less money out.

It's the adrenaline. It's the adrenaline. Yeah, it's the moment that's addictive. It's the moment before, you know, if you've lost or not. That's right. It's a pure, pure hope. But it's derived is derived from that. That just suspense created by the randomness of being given, whereas at least if you're betting on a horse race, you like you pick a horse,

or I think that one, then you watch the race and there's like, you know, there's more of an experience. That's right. I'm sure there are problem gamblers with that as well. But there's like I can see people doing that just recreationally in a way that I can't with like this. One of the huge issues is that also the bookie doesn't control the odds of the race. Their own odds may reflect what they think are their best guess odds of the race. Now, what if this horse would have a little accident?

But in this case, the bookies actually control the odds of the game, which again, a metaphor for late stage capitalism, but B, I want to read you guys what the spectator thinks about the possible regulation of FOB T's. And again, you're not going to want to let me do this, but please let me get to the end of this sentence before you start shouting. If a government desperate for diversions decides to heed the baying social media mob and wrecks the FOB T business with new restrictions,

then the high street betting shops will close, jobs will be lost and racing's income stream will shrink jobs in a bad industry are going to be lost. The year is 2042. FOB T machines have now been destroyed for the past 10 years. Dogs roam the streets. Men with jaundiced eyes look upon you and say, have you seen a virtual horse race? You say, no, no one's seen one in years. I don't remember the name.

Dogs roam the streets very quickly. Out of out of work as racing. People bet on the outcomes of the dogs running on the street using outdated tinned food. It's straight. That's such a weird. I mean, it's a very I would imagine the readership of the spectator is very concerned about the health of horse racing, but it's a very odd line of argument to make. You know, Paddy Power came out and said Paddy Power, the CEO, said if you reduce

the stake, I think they said the government should reduce the maximum stake. And if it was the two pounds, we wouldn't object and we wouldn't shut any shops. So it's only the really the big. Yeah, it's the big cause to be fair, Paddy Power been around since 2007, so they've targeted their shops quite well, but it's a big corporate problem. And to be honest, the average person say, oh, betting shops will close. They go, good fine.

It's awesome. It's the same. It's the same rationale. We have to walk three miles to the daily betting shop. It's the same rationale where a lot of people say, oh, well, if you increase taxes on the wealthy, then what if all the big capitalists leave? Say, OK, can they sooner? Well, that's not quite analogous. I know, I know, I know, but these massive women go six miles every day in the

blistering heat to gather a basket of virtual horse racing to bring back to feed their children in terms of capital flight. Don't try and make that argument in Singapore. Will you rightly or they would genuinely be very concerned? Well, fortunately, I don't live in Singapore. I live somewhere where maybe soon. Well, actually, I was going to say maybe soon, the absolute boy can become Prime Minister, but I just checked.

Who's currently Prime Minister? Allegedly, it's Theresa May. She actually denies it. There are rumors viciously circulating that Jeremy Corbyn is actually the Prime Minister, Jeremy Corbyn is due to due to the fact that the agenda is entirely set by Jeremy Corbyn, the Tories respond to Jeremy Corbyn and it looks like I wasn't aware there was an agenda, the agenda was like, ah, fuck. Everything's on fire.

Who has the most peace? It's like, should we put out this fire? No, first of all, we need to tell everyone to learn to love the fire. The fire is fine. The fire will help. What does the fire think? But it's like it's amazing what happened at Tory Conference. It's just all totally reactive to

God, it owned. It owned so hard to us. They are having an existential crisis, I think there's no one. There's no members, no one in the hall. They have a judge of their members is seventy one. Yes, do you know how you make charcoal? Yes, you burn away all of the sort of impurities and non carbon bits of wood. Yes, you're left with pure carbon.

It burns hotter. Yes, yes. Well, you'd be first against the wall. Why not be first against the wall? Be in the vanguard, Pierre, you'd be. Well, no, you'd be like second wave against the wall where it's like, well, he was intellectual enough to help us convince people. And now it's time.

You were being shot by the NKVD. It's darling. I'm like, well, I'm not doing that. Yeah, I think honestly, I think I'm a trot. I think I'd be killed by an ice pick in Mexico later. But damn, wouldn't I not have good intentions? That armored train of yours. Right. To people watching us through the window, this must look very odd.

I don't think anyone's watching us. You held a hand up for silence, then put the hand down and then just looked at me as though as though I should know what to do. It would be less weird to someone through the window if we were nude, because then they could at least go, oh, it's a sex thing. So I think having thoroughly salted the slugs at the spectator. Yeah.

And having completely discredited their entire ideology, which is like, you know, regressive and nonsense and might get, I don't know, three people in the Cotswolds in a red faced Labrador to vote for it. What say we talk about our show's favorite listener? Oh, Mr. Stephen of Seagal. Like obviously, you know, the Steven Seagal facts as they as they come in, they're getting harder to find, I'm having to get more creative. But I like this section of the Wikipedia page.

Help me out here. Right. So while in Japan, Seagal married his first wife, Miyako Fujitani, the daughter of an Aikido instructor with Fujitani, had a son, actor, model, Kentaro Seagal, which is those two names should never be together. And the daughter, writer and actress Aiko Fujitani. Interesting how. Right. Fine. Seagal left Miyako to move back to the United States. During this time, he met actress and model Kelly LeBrock, with whom he began an

affair that led to Fujitani granting him a divorce. This sounds like Steven Seagal was being held captive by a Japanese woman. Until eventually upon upon meeting a stronger opponent, a sort of alpha woman in Kelly LeBrock, decided to relinquish him. Oh, I know what Steven Seagal is. Steven Seagal is the belt in WWE. That's literally Steven Seagal is. He is the prize.

What a terrible price. Just George Foreman's want the belt. Chunky, chunky, shiny, chunky, shiny. Never fights though, getting up out of a chair. Always adjacent to great physical feats. Never performing. Yes, Matt. Are you familiar with Steven Seagal? Not really, no.

Oh my God, I love every time I get to explain this. Regular listeners of the podcast might turn it off now, but fuck it. You know, Steven Seagal was a is still an American action movie star that started making films like the late 80s, 90s, this kind of thing. Personal friend of Vladimir Putin, trainer to the Serbian special forces. Call of that is literally true. There's a lot more about the Serbian special forces and Steven Seagal. It's he's in two kinds of films.

He was in films like Under Siege, for example, that are considered to be classic action films about like, you know, cops, disarmament, immobilize the cops. But still the dang cops. Then more recently, as he's become genuinely obese and also just crazier, he's in lower and lower budget, more and more set in Romania films. Where most of what he does is do fake Aikido from an office chair, but with really epic music and quick cuts over it. So essentially, but he also believes he is the world's most dangerous

person and occasionally makes media statements to this effect. He was hired by the Russian and Serbian special forces to teach their police how to beat people up. But again, most of his fighting is done from an office chair against people who do a backflip when he touches their wrist. Do you think Steven Seagal is secretly a massive leftist agitator? And he's effectively teaching the Russian right police bad tactics for beating up protesters so that they suddenly find says, what?

We're sitting and lightly touching them on the wrist, but they're not backflipping away. They just we've got nothing. Do I I would love I would love for there to be an enormous hashtag woke blog attacking you for fat shaming Steven Seagal. That is my new dream. All I want now and I'm going to say to any listener that makes a hashtag woke Steven Seagal blog attacking me for fat shaming Steven Seagal. We will just have you on an episode if you do that in fairness.

But I think from the trash, future family to your family might be time to say Alphina Zane, baby. Right. Yes. I don't know. Is that Seagal quote? No, it's a German quote. Oh, very nice. Thanks a lot. Goodbye. Goodbye. Thanks, everyone.