Giro Games 
Kapchagay: The Kazakh Town That Was Ordered to Become Las Vegas
When Kazakhstan banned gambling everywhere else in 2007, it designated two remote zones where casinos could survive. A lakeside town of forty thousand was…
land-based gaming - Giro Games
Okislo: The Okinawan Slot Machine With Bigger Coins
Okinawa runs its own species of pachislot, with 30mm medals instead of 25mm and machines you will not find on the Japanese mainland. The…
Fun Games: The German Machines That Were Legally Not Gambling
For years German arcades ran machines that paid nothing but points, played at extraordinary speed, and were classified as amusement rather than gambling. In…
Why There Is No Casino in Paris
France has hundreds of casinos and none in its capital. A 19th-century law kept gambling at a distance from Paris, and slot machines were…
Sixty Years Illegal, Then Everywhere: The Spanish Tragaperras
Spain banned gambling in 1924 and kept the ban through the Franco era. When the machines were legalised after the transition to democracy, they…
The Casino of Europe Closes Its Hernas
Czechia once had gambling halls on seemingly every corner — the herna, a bar-and-slot hybrid that became a national fixture. Municipal bans have made…
Twenty Thousand Machines, Thirty Days: Hungary’s Overnight Ban
In autumn 2012 Hungary banned slot machines outside casinos with almost no transition period. Thousands of venues closed within weeks, and the resulting disputes…
Measuring the Distance to a School: Italy’s Distanziometro
Italian regions regulate slot machines with a ruler. The distanziometro sets a minimum distance between gaming venues and schools, churches and clinics — and…
The University That Runs on Slot Machines
Iceland has no private casinos. It does have gaming machines — and a large share of them belong to the University of Iceland, whose…
A Slot Machine Called Jack: How Sweden Put Gambling in Every Pub
Jack Vegas is a brand, not a game — the state-run machine network that stood in Swedish restaurants and bars for decades. Its story…
Slot Machines Next to the Milk: Finland’s Supermarket Gambling Era
For decades Finland put gaming machines in grocery stores, kiosks and petrol stations — thousands of them, in ordinary daily spaces. Then the country…
Norway Switched Off Every Slot Machine in the Country. Then Measured What Happened
In 2007 Norway removed all privately operated slot machines nationwide, then reintroduced state terminals with mandatory player cards. Researchers got a natural experiment almost…
€12.50 an Hour: Belgium Regulates the Speed of Losing
Belgian café gaming machines are governed by a metric almost no other country uses: the average hourly loss. Two machines per bar, €12.50 per…
The Physics Institute That Approves Slot Machines: Germany’s PTB Pipeline
In Germany, cash gaming machines are type-approved by the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt — the same national institute that keeps the country’s atomic clocks. Here is…
The Dutch Three-Machine Rule: Where a Slot Legally Stops Being a Slot
Dutch law splits every gaming cabinet into three species: kansspelautomaat, behendigheidsautomaat and kermisautomaat. The line between them decides whether a machine is gambling at…
Slots That Owe You Money: Inside Italy’s Cycle-Based AWP Machines
Italian bar slots don’t use pure RNG math. Comma 6a AWP machines run on a legal payout cycle: at least 75% must come back…