STAFF at a local betting shop are worried about their future because of a clampdown on ‘crack cocaine’ betting machines.

Bookmaker William Hill, which has an outlet in Fore Street, Wellington, fears about two out of every five of its 2,334 premises nationwide are set to become loss makers within two or so years.

And it is facing the prospect of having to close a proportion of up to 900 of its shops after 2020 under a change in gambling laws.

The Government plans to cut the maximum stake on fixed-odds betting machines from £100 to £2 after reports claimed they are highly addictive and have caused ‘a social blight’.

MPs were told that the terminals, dubbed ‘crack cocaine’ machines, had lured thousands of gamblers into debt as they were unable to resist pumping in more and more cash in an attempt to recover their losses.

The £2 limit was set to come in this year but the Government has

now delayed that until 2020 following pressure from the gambling

lobby.