Hungary's stock market - like those around the world - is in the grip of a terrifying, near-total meltdown, with the Budapest Stock Exchange's (BSE) benchmark BUX index now down roughly 50% off its 52-week highs. And it's not just the relentless drive down that is causing local investors pain and anguish. There is also the lurking sense that, even if prices for equities find a "floor," ongoing volatility will make investing in Hungarian stocks more hair-raising than pumping money into a slot machine at your local pub. Which makes it seem like a bad for people to be trying to prevent potential investors in the BUX from instead spending their money on the slots at their local pub.

But according to a recent piece in daily broadsheet Népszabadság, this is exactly what is going on. The paper reports that Hungary's Gambling Addicts Association Szerencsejátékosok Országos Érdekvédelmi Közhasznú Egyesülete is pushing ahead with a drive to collect enough signatures to force a referendum on banning gaming machines - called nyerőgép, or "winning machines" - from bars and pubs, and restricting them to casinos.

So far, the petition attempt has not been successful, because (the petitioners say) of a negative campaign on the part of the Gambling Association, acting on behalf of those who collect all the coins dumped into the machines.

József Abházi, the man who initiated the signature collection drive, has said his followers are going to continue their fight against the one-armed bandits, and will push a proposed amendment to the gambling law forcing the state to allocate 1% of the collected game tax to the prevention and treatment of gambling addiction. He estimates that 500,000 people are affected by the problem in Hungary.

For its part, the Gambling Association has started a survey on the local gambling addiction problem, though the body's chairman, István Schreiber, said his group disputes the 500,000 figure, adding that the number of gambling addicts in Hungary is 50,000 at most. He also said the association is going to begin offering counseling sessions for people who lose too much playing the country's "winning" machines. Which is a nice gesture, even if the counselors might be better employed holding the hands of the even bigger losers who have been gambling away their savings on the BSE.