ABSTRACT
The government, faced with an unregulated gaming industry, decided to legalise gaming in clubs under a strict regulatory regime. According to Miers, ‘There was widespread agreement in 1968 that the main task was to eliminate from the market those operators that might be likely to adopt exploitive practices’. Taverne estimated that there were around 1,500 clubs where some form of gambling took place, though only about half were casino-style gaming clubs. The greatest perceived danger was that the British gaming industry would be infiltrated by foreign criminal organisations, in particular the American Mafia. The Home Office’s Introduction to the Gaming Act 1968 indicated that the main purpose of the new legislation was ‘to curb all forms of gaming which are liable to be commercially exploited and abused’. It was clear from this document that the government was responding to anxieties regarding the perceived criminality of the gaming industry.
