Forbidden Fruit

France's non to gambling

First France's Socialist government outraged the country by decreeing this spring that vacationers could each spend no more than about $425 abroad. Thousands of French travel agents took to the streets for banner-waving protests that helped force the government to ease the restriction. Now President Francois Mitterrand's Cabinet has raised outcries by proposing a ban on slot machines. The move, which the French National Assembly is expected to approve by midsummer, also puts a five-game limit on the number of turns that can be won on video games and pinball machines. Pouted one newspaper: "They've even frapped our innocent flippers."

Slot machines are a big business in France and a mainstay of many bars and cafes. More than 30,000 of what the French call machines a sous (penny-in-the-slot machines) swallowed up some $2 billion in francs last year in 3,000 watering holes and arcades around the country. A machine offering a popular game like jackpots costs nearly $3,000 but may bring in up to $15,000 a month. The slots can be vital for attracting patrons to many cafes or bars. Complains one Paris publican: "If you don't have machines in your place, nobody is going to come any more, and you're going to wind up in debt."

The French slots, which cost at least 5 francs (70-c-) to play, have one startling and seemingly fatal limitation: they cannot pay off in money. Each carries a yellow plaque warning players that they can win only free games. The restriction, however, is roundly ignored. Winners need merely wink at barmen to collect their jackpots from the cash register. "All the cafe owners give money," asserts one player, who says he can pocket nearly $30 on a good day. Adds a proprietor: "That's true, but I don't give money to just anybody, only to people I know."

The Socialist government holds that he machines are a source of endless trouble. Officials say gangsters supply most of the slots to bar owners and then rake off half of the take. Interior Minister Gaston Defferre, who first proposed the ban, alls the machines "the milk cow of the underworld."

At least three major slot-machine gangs are now thought to be operating in France. According to police, turf wars between rival gangsters led to four Paris murders during 1982. Says one inspector: "A slot machine in a bar is less cumbersome and less talkative than a prostitute on the street, and it also brings in more money."

The government has called the games "a dangerous diversion" for young people and for those with modest incomes. Frequent players, who can hope to win illegal jackpots of more than $2,500, include immigrant workers from Algeria or Portugal and residents of the poorer sections of France's major cities. Most of those people have no wish to break their habit, which costs many $15 a day or more. Says one jackpot junkie: "You'd better believe I like playing. You don't need friends, and you don't have to worry about being lied to. I just go home when I'm sick of it, and I don't get into trouble with anyone."

Critics of the proposed ban point out that the government may actually be outlawing the slots because they are competition for the state-run Le Loto, a weekly lottery that brings some $326 million into the French treasury each year. Le Loto, which also runs mainly out of cafes and bars, could raise even more money if there were fewer games in town.

Ironically, the French government itself triggered the slot-machine boom and is among its biggest beneficiaries. French slots had long been outlawed and confined to the back rooms of seedy bars until December 1981, when the Mitterrand Administration tacitly legalized them by placing a $714 annual tax on each machine. The number of slots quickly exploded from 10,000 to 30,000 by the end of last year. An additional 25,000 were installed in the first three months of 1983 alone. Paris' estimated tax take from the machines is now running at an annual rate of some $40 million.

The government, however, is willing to give up those revenues to halt what it has come to call "immoral games ol chance." Under the proposed law, anyone caught owning or using a slot machine could be fined up to $4,100 and sentenced to six months in jail. Barring a major wave of protests, France's machines a sous seem headed for the back room once again. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.