Terminal loss: what will punters do when the machines are taken away?

Four months from now you won't be able to walk into your local betting shop and pump £100 a spin into a betting terminal, or £5 for that matter as the government's decision to reduce the maximum stake to £2 comes into effect.

So if that has been your pastime over the past two decades you are going to have to find a new hobby. The question is what will those gamblers who play the high-stake fixed-odds betting terminals do instead.

Will they give up gambling entirely, as some campaigners against the machines would hope? Do they move to online games which offer a far greater range of possibilities for quick play but from the comfort of home? Do they scale down to playing the gaming machines at £2 a throw? Or do they switch to betting on horses, dogs, football and the rest in the shops that have become their second homes.