Like many, I am an ex smoker who at one time couldn’t imagine life without being able to light up at the end of a meal in a restaurant or enjoy a cigarette with a glass of wine in the pub after work. But as much as I enjoyed smoking, deep down I knew I really wanted to give up one day. Even as a smoker I hoped the UK would ban cigarettes in public places as I felt the added pressure would help me stop. I was amazed when Italy was one of the first countries to introduce the ban, as their smoking habits seemed even more ingrained than ours. When working in Sicily after university, I often saw people smoking in banks (the bank tellers as well as the customers), people smoking in the butcher’s or baker’s and most worryingly I once saw a petrol pump attendant filling a motorcycle tank with a fag hanging out of his mouth! I was confident that a ban would be ignored in true Latin style. But I was wrong, the ban works - people respect it and most relevant to us, they still like to play machines.

Of course there are bound to be concerns that people will abandon the pub for a drink at home and the freedom to smoke and that this in turn will have a negative effect on machine takings. And this may indeed happen in the short-term. But are we saying that the main attraction of going to the pub is a fog of cigarette smoke and filthy ashtrays? Smokers will continue to go to pubs and nip outside for their fix. Pubs will provide more pleasant beer gardens and terraces to accommodate them. Canny coin-opsters are already providing outdoor machine options to take advantage of this. If the ban leads to more people giving up smoking then all the better - at least they will have longer lives in which to enjoy playing our machines!

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