I’ve never been much of a gambler. The last time I really went mad was down in Margate, aged about eight, where I blew £3 in as many minutes filling up one of those 2p sliding drawer contraptions.

I’m sure you’ve seen them, where the coin dances down a maze of pegs before falling at the back of a moving pile of pennies that looks like any moment now it’s going to burst its banks into the collection tray below.

Just the slightest push was all it seemed to need – one tiny sliver of copper could make me a millionaire, or at least make back my swiftly frittered ice-cream fund.

And it wasn’t just coins up for grabs – usually a Rojex watch could be found sitting perilously atop the mountain of money, or a not-quite-right Disney character with over-sized ears and eyes that said: “I’m going to eat all your other toys.”

This place had all the hallmarks of those manic few minutes in Margate – the fit-inducing flashing lights, the sirens, bells and whistles, even the psychedelic carpet – think somewhere between your granny’s front-room rug and a magic eye poster. For all my staring I never did get it.

But there was no 2p sliding game, nor a cuddly toy grabber arm, and no opportunity to decapitate zombies with a day-glo plastic pistol. We were here to win money, which is probably the only reason to come, except for if you wanted to lose money, which I was doing a very good job of.

I was at a disadvantage – I’ve never understood fruit machines. There were lots of them here, they lined the walls, with big display screens flashing up games involving Egyptian mummies, penguins fishing and pirates. Where does one learn how to play? Do they run secret lucky-seven’s slot seminars at Jackpot Polytechnic?

I was losing money fast, burning through my bag of back-of-the-sofa-shrapnel quicker than a roll of the dice.

This evening, luckily, I had a guide. He was an occasional gambler, a cool-headed poker-faced individual who fed a betting-shop roulette machine a couple of times a week in his lunch breaks.

Although he’d racked up substantial debts in the past, he’d been keeping a record of all his wins and losses for some months now and to date, all accounted for, was about £5 up.

“Come on, that’s practice done. Let’s do some proper gambling,” he said. I thought we had been. I’d lost about £4 already. It was warm here, and they had free Wagon Wheels, but it was time to move. I wasn’t out for amusement, I was here to investigate a more involved kind of gaming experience – virtual roulette machines, also known as fixed-odds betting terminals, FOBTs or B2s for short.

They’ve been dubbed the “crack cocaine of gambling”. There’s a campaign mounting to have them reduced in numbers and some people want them banned completely. They must be good.

We headed out, past the cash machine and fake plants, and into the rain.

It was just a short dash across the high street to the first betting shop on our jaunt where we found three B2s right by the door. I’d barely stepped in a betting shop before now. I’d placed an occasional flutter on the Grand National of course, dodging nicotine stained beard-wearers and fat-necked football supporters to place a pound on Black Apalachi, but for no other reason than I liked the jockey’s jersey colours.

It wasn’t like I thought it was going to be. It felt more like a building society than a bookies. Laminate floor, clinical colour scheme, this was not the sleazy pit of vice I was expecting.

The game here was simple. All you had to do was place virtual chips onto a touch-screen roulette table and press Spin.

On a second screen above, a computer generated croupier spun the wheel and the little white ball bounced about before settling, of course, on one of the few numbers I hadn’t covered.

I tried again. You can repeat the placement of all your chips with a single tap. Repeat. Spin. I won. Then I won again. It was fast. The whole process of placing bets and waiting for the result took seconds.

My guide was on a streak too. The random result generators here seemed on our side. We were up.

“Let’s give it a bit more,” he said, picking through a palmful of pound coins. We were on a run, reached a round number, cashed in and left. I hadn’t even taken my coat off.

The next place was like the foyer of a budget hotel. Apart from the retired gentlemen in tan jacket and trilby staring somewhere beyond the bank of TV screens and the young guy on the roulette, it was empty.

We took our seats at the machines by the door and played again. I only looked up when the young guy to my right emptied his lungs with a long sigh. He let his head fall, hit collect and waited for his receipt slip to print. It didn’t look good but at least he was going home with something. He took the slip to the counter, looked longingly at the chip and pin machine and collected his cash.

He slumped towards the exit, looked out into the rain-lashed night and stopped. Staring into the change in his hand, out into the rain and then back again, he turned back, scurrying self-consciously to the other roulette machine in the far corner. Maybe that one would be luckier.

A Stop The FOTBs campaign is growing in momentum, aiming to have these “high stake, high speed, hard core” machines slashed in numbers.

Response from The Association of British Bookmakers asks for empirical evidence proving they’re a problem – not “myths and half-truths”.

“Their popularity does not necessarily mean that they are or cause a problem,” they say. There are nearly 60 FOBTs in Watford alone.

My guide was £10 down. “Let’s go,” he said. “We’re done. Time to head.”

He’d made peace with his loss. He could just about afford it.

But we’d been playing with low stakes, we never stood to lose much.

Others do though – he’d seen friends feed note after note into FOBTs – sometimes winning big, sometimes not at all.

“Let me just get rid of this 60p,” I said to him as we stood in the blue glow of another high street arcade. It was lost in an instant.

“Hi lads, do you want a free scratchcard?,” said the assistant, popping out from behind the free refreshments.

We won of course, in credit, which she loaded directly into a machine.

A cacophony of bonus-run bells and bleeps blared out and in a couple of minutes my guide was £20 up. He hit Collect. “Now’s the time to call it a night.”

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