Toy company Hamley's has bowed to pressure and said it will stop selling a controversial toy accused of promoting gambling to children.
The Lucky Slot machine, retailing at £32, is advertised as offering "the experience of Las Vegas without the heavy debt" and bringing "a touch of Nevada" to your living room. It uses real coins and is marked as having a minimum age of 14 years.
However Ronnie Cowan, SNP MP for Inverclyde wrote to the chief executive of the firm after seeing the toy on sale in their Glasgow store, arguing that it risked normalising gambling.
Read more: MP's call for Hamley's to withdraw children's toy that 'normalises' gambling
Meanwhile the charity GambleAware said toys for children which simulated real life gambling were a "serious concern" given that 25,000 children in the UK aged 11 to 16 years old are problem gamblers.
Now the company has backed down and a PR spokeswoman confirmed it would no longer be selling the one-armed bandit in its stores. In an official statement, Hamley's said: “There is a clear age restriction on this product, but following consultation with a variety of organisations, we have decided to remove the product from sale”.
Mr Cowan – a prominent campaigner for measures to reduce the damage caused by problem gambling using fixed odds betting terminals – said he was pleased the company had withdrawn the product.
“Having raise this issue I am delighted that Hamleys have responded so quickly," he said.
"We are devaluing childhood by targeting children as a consumer group. We undervalue their innocence and increasingly aim to make money from them, directly and indirectly.
Read more: Scots problem gamblers losing tens of millions on controversial fixed odds machines
“I would hope that stores that specialise in marketing and selling children’s toys would seek to cherish these early and formative years and ensure that children are not exploited.”
At the time of going to press, the toy was still on sale on the company's website.
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