[vintermann]

For a short while, Norway had extremely liberal slot machine laws. They were in every supermarket, post office, anywhere. There was (and is) a state-run gambling monopoly, but slot machines weren't covered by it - they were considered a continuation of Payazzo games, a form of very-low stakes skill-based gambling machines that charities had long been allowed to operate. So charities got to operate slot machines.

Some may say the charities got just as addicted as the gamblers. I remember in particular in a TV debate, where Thorvald Stoltenberg, respected former minister and president of the Norwegian Red Cross, declared that although he realized the harm they caused, he had decided to defend slot machines "no matter what" because they were such an important income source for his organization. He said it as if it was some selfless commitment.

Eventually, though, gambling addiction became a too big and obvious problem to ignore, and the gambling monopoly took over, sharply reducing the numbers of machines and (supposedly) making them less aggressive. There were some concessions to the charities that lost income as a result of it (which, as I recall, screwed over the few charities that had taken a principled stand against slot machines).