Officers of Poland’s Central Bureau of Investigation and customs officers have moved in on several dozen venues with low stakes gambling machines and confiscated 200 of them.

The officers were acting upon orders of the department of organized crime from the public prosecutors’ office in Bialystok, north-eastern Poland, which is running an investigation on the so-called “one-armed bandits”.

The requisition of the machines was made on suspicion that they have been used for games which violate the Polish gambling law.

T

he shady business of one-armed bandit gambling, with an income exceeding some 8.5 billion zlotys (1.9 billion euros) a year is believed to be exploit loopholes in Polish law and in effect the state loses up to 200 million zlotys (46 million euro) a year in tax revenues.

Currently in Poland there are over 40,000 gambling machines of this kind. (jm)

Source: Puls Biznesu