Government refuses to take action on gambling games as addictive as 'crack cocaine' Mr Robertson said he would only change the law if there was new evidence. David Lammy, the Labour MP for Tottenham, said gamblers can lose as much as £100 in just twenty seconds when using the six slot betting terminals. The MP said British high streets are being turned into a "mini Las Vegas" because of the machines. "The victims are the staff, often women, who work in these stores who are seeing aggressive behaviour as a result of these losses, and the individual gamblers themselves," Mr Lammy said. We can not continue with this situation in our country where effectively we are turning our high streets into a mini Las Vegas, the rest of the world heavily regulates these machines in a gambling environment. We are turning into a laissez-faire approach to gambling in Britain, which is a departure from where we have been historically and we are seeing the problems proliferate and saturate our high streets and the Government needs to do something about it. Mr Robertson said the government would be prepared to bring in new laws to clamp down on the spread of betting shops. Ciaran O'Brien, from bookmakers Ladbrokes, has denied the machines are a problem and said the industry takes action to fund "research, education and treatment" for addicts. He said the average spend on a gambling machine was just under £7, while the average stake on a betting slip is £8.40. Kelvin Hopkins, Labour MP for Luton North, said that "compulsive gambling ruins lives and destroys families." "The most addictive form of gambling is on fixed-odds betting terminals, or gambling machines, which are described as the crack cocaine of gambling," he added.