Fixed-Odds Betting Terminal Inventor Denies Bribing Austria’s Former Vice Chancellor

In Austria, the co-inventor of the controversial play machines known as fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs) is on trial run for corruption, on with the country’s far-right former vice chancellor, Heinz-Christian Strache.

Prosecutors say Bruno Walter Grubmüller made a €10,000 donation to Strache’s Freedom Party. He also took the then-vice premier on holiday on his racing yacht to his place on the island of Corfu, all inwards homecoming for political favors.

They lay claim Grubmüller wanted Strache to alter the practice of law to puddle a small common soldier hospital he owned eligible for public funding. As vice-chancellor, Strache was the second-most powerful man inwards Austria at the time.

Both Grubmüller and Strache refuse the allegations.

Crack Cocaine of the High Street

In 1998, Grubmüller founded Global Draw with British people former bookie Steve Frater. Together, they created FOBTs, machines that would go prevalent inward UK betting shops, offering customers an raiment of fast-paced electronic play games, from line roulette to simulated Equus caballus racing.

The machines get been criticized for their addictive qualities, which prompted the British people administration to cut down the maximum stakes per twist from £100 to £2 inwards 2018.

In 2004, Frater and Grubmüller sold Global Draw to US gaming monster Scientific Games for £104 trillion ($143 million).

German prosecutors uncovered the human relationship between Strache and Grubmüller when they were investigating the so-called “casinos affaire” and an episode known inwards the Austrian media as “Ibiza-gate.”

Ibiza-Gate and the Casinos Affaire

In May 2019, Strache was caught in an elaborate sting surgery on the island of Ibiza. He was filmed inward conversation with a woman posing as a Russian Oligarch’s niece.

Strache is heard offering the adult female state contracts for cash. He also discussed the potential sales event of i of Austria’s biggest tabloid newspapers to the phony oligarch to ensure electropositive insurance coverage for the Freedom Party.

He also discussed how it’s possible to pee illegal political donations by using non-profit organizations to hold in transactions from auditors.

He mentioned several companies that funded the Freedom Party in this way, including play heavyweight Novomatic, which denies it did so.

In March 2019, Freedom Party fellow member and Strache crony St. Peter the Apostle Sidlo was prescribed CFO of Casinos Austria (CA), despite having no more previous executive director or gaming industry experience.

CA is a third-owned past the Austrian state. Until recently, its other major shareholder was Novomatic, with 17 percent. CA holds the monopoly on casino gaming inward Austria.

Quid Pro Quo

Whistleblowers alleged that Novomatic backed Sidlo’s assignment as portion of a quid-pro-quo sell with the Freedom Party. They claimed Novomatic wanted Strache to influence the government to liberalise cassino gaming, breaking Casinos Austria’s long-held monopoly. They also wanted to rescind a practice of law banning gaming arcades from the Austrian capital.

This could so make paved the path for Novomatic to control a gambling casino in Vienna, spell flooding arcades with its gaming machines.

Novomatic has categorically denied these allegations and has since sold its stakes in Casinos Austria. No ane has been supercharged inwards recounting to the scandal.

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