Therefore it is impossible that there can have been any increase whatsoever in the total receipts from the machines in comparison with the figures for the 2007 financial year, as shown in the Annual Report. The trend from then onwards is clearly downwards and according to the data obtained by FAMAR (Federation of Amusement Machine Associations) in the third quarter of the current year the situation that prevails across the amusement machine sector in Spain, far from improving, is getting worse each time. If in the first six months of the year the takings had decreased by 20%, the latest data indicate that the reduction at the end of September was now 25%. The present financial crisis that is affecting the Spanish hotel industry, and the effects of the consumers’ declining spending power, are two factors that are clearly contributing to the bad results that the amusement machine sector is experiencing. The fiscal pressure currently in force is clearly becoming untenable, and many operating companies are being forced to remove a very significant number of machines, faced with the impossibility of paying the corresponding gaming rate.  Confronted with this situation, FAMAR considers that is necessary to take urgent measures in order to prevent a serious crisis in the sector, and insists on the need for the different Autonomous Communities to consider applying a 25% reduction in the present Gaming Rate applicable to machines of type B in the budgets for 2010 and 2011.

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