When i first started betting in the 80's betting shops were places where people had a laugh and (occasionally) sensibly discussed horse racing and betting. What a difference now. Full of FOBT addicts , a few tramps , open drug dealing and complete knob-ends who want to tell you whats going to win every fuckin' race even though they look like they are worth about a fiver. Throw in staff who haven't got a clue what the Cheltenham Festival is and the whole experience is an unpleasant one. I have seen three shops in Sheffield with boarded up windows in the last few weeks and i bet that it is a disgruntled FOBT mug who is responsible for them.
The big firms lay better odds online than they do in the shops - especially on football where all three prices can be bigger where the competition is stronger than on the High Street where mugs don't know the difference. Intelligent punters are all online now whilst FOBT twats and 50p each way old geezers are all the shops have. While we are on the subject what the fuck is it with virtual racing , dogs , motorcycling etc? - nobody bets on this shit - nobody - why is this shit all over the screens on the shops? , just going in to a shop to look up a result is a mission these days as you have to wade through nonsense first. Does anyone like spending any time at all in bookies anymore?
Betting shops scare me these days, but it doesn't stop me going in them sadly. You could call me an FOBT twat. I remember what bookies looked like from the outside in the 80's, as I was too young to go in, but i'd often peer through the door and see the buzz of activity in there through the smoke. It seemed to me like there was all sorts of mischief going on, and I wanted a part of it, it seemed like the place to be. My mate used to put the odd bet on for me when I was in my teens, just a fiver (£5.45) here and there, while I stood at the door in anticipation.
By the time I was old enough to go in I had discovered casinos unfortunately, but still used to pop in. Never had much interest in horses though, but used to have an acca on the Saturday football.
Nowadays bookies and betting in general are being thrust at you from every conceivable direction. It smacks of desperation because as you rightly point out, the astute bettor is sat online doing his bets from the comfort of his home. You used to get some real characters in the betting shop, but alas the only people you are likely to find now are those who don't happen to be peeling potatoes or boiling rice at that particular time in whatever takeaway eaterie happens to be nearby.
Its the virtual betting that really makes me sick. Ball-out-of-the-bag 'racing' from Portman Park or whatever, its just a bent lottery dressed up as an entertaining race, designed to keep the degenerates busy should there be a 3 minute gap between any live racing, much in the same way that FOBT roulette is a number pulled from a bag, displayed on your screen as an 'exciting' spin of a roulette wheel. Honestly, its fucking nauseating, all of it. Then you have those Rapido draws and Irish lotto etc, just in case you happen to have any money lef....
....Sorry about that, I was just wiping the sick off my keyboard.
In summary, betting shops are most certainly no fun to be in these days. You can sit and lose £100 a spin on roulette while some scruffy, vacant-eyed Afghan tells you in broken English what number is coming in, and if you escape from there the chances are you'll pass another brightly lit and heavily advertised betting shop on your route home, because its all chain shops these days, no independents left, much in the same way that every casino is now Grosvenor/Stanleys or Mint/Gala. In the 80's if you were in a betting shop playing a fruit machine it was most likely a jpm Supershot or similar, 10p a play, £4 token jackpot, good stake to prize ratio, thus entertainment. In an hour you might have ploughed through a torn fiver, but today at £2 a fucking spin you could quite easily lose a couple of hundred watching 5 computerised reels spin round, 'narrowly missing' big wins or 'exciting sounding, cash laden features that never fail to disappoint.
Quality, cynical post which sums up betting shops in a nutshell.
In Lehmans terms - no FOBTs, no High Street Bookies.
I briefly worked in Willie Hills last year and it was full of foreigners mainly playing the FOBTs, but more annoyingly coppering up for an 80p dog bet whilst there is a punter wanting to put a £50 single on a horse.
You serve the £50 customer whilst the foreigner is coppering up and the foreigner goes mad because he believes he is the most important man in the shop.
I used to just humour them.....then tell 'em to fuck off somewhere else once I'd had enough!!! Not the best customer service, I know.
Then you get your tramps who think the place is good for a free cuppa and a relatively clean place to have a poo.
The shop I worked in had a 'ring up HQ for the allowance of £50 or more single bets'.....what the fuck is that all about? I used to feel awful having to make a phone call to be granted permission to accept a bet. The punter must have felt like a second class citizen. Pathetic.
Yet I used to enjoy going to work. It was akin to an episode of Jeremy Kyle - no matter how bad your day/week/life was, you always found solace in knowing somebody was actually having it worse than you!!!
Nothing else to add. Bookies now want to have more than 4 FOBT's in their shops. Ladbrokes are averaging £866 a week per machine which is over £180k per annum per shop.
All the young and middle age punters have disappeared. No-one bets on the horses.
"Customers are 10% the regular 75 yo OAP, 5% the business guy who pops in his lunch hour, 5% the unemployed white guy who spends all day on a 10p yankee and a hot cup of instant coffee, 79% mixture of eastern european lowlifes, staff from the local chinese restaurant on a break between lunch and dinner and a few africans who just come in to watch the devil's wheel go round and round and 1% a £100 a race punter who actually bets on horse races.
Don't dare win £1,000 because the safe is on a timelock, the manager has gone to lunch or "Come back tomorrow".
Even if you won a bag of sand, you would have to look over your shoulder on the way out, as have the punters suddenly look like the bloke off of Crimewatch, wanted for aggravated burglary and whose eyeballs are bulging out of their head.
Try going in today, pick out a horse and pull out a wad of notes and have £1000 on a 20/1 shot. The manager almost shits himself, as if it's his wages on the line if the horse wins, phones up head office, whilst you wait 20 minutes to get offered a tenner at 20/1, and £40 at SP. Then politely say no thanks, I'll go elsewhere.
Or asking the clueless teller how many bets in a round robin or how many bets for reverse forecast doubles in 10 dog races or the going at Portman Park.
AlthoughI do agree with all this, up until recently, my favourite bookie was a local Coral, lots of people who werent scared of a decent bet on a horse, very competent staff who knew what they were on about, and not too many foreigners sniffing about.
The only reason i pop into shops now is to watch a race if i am out. Also the online bookies let you watch a race live with a £1 bet but NOT if you have a substantially bigger ' through the card ' bet such as distances , favourites or a placepot. Don't understand this either - surely a £50 bet on a whole meeting should entitle me to watch online if i can for a few quid betting on each race?
I do wonder about virtual racing though - i honestly hardly ever see a bet being placed on this. They have a whole screen in Hills offering ' odd or even ' number betting on virtual speedway. No-one has ever bet 4/6 even against 11/10 odd , ever , ever , so why are such adverts on screen? I am sure they are not catering to an existing clientele , but are trying to create a new one. The bookies are playing the long game hoping that eventually people will play these games , and the more horse racing disappears up it's own arse the more some will consider it i guess.
popped into william hill earlier,only as i had a min to spare,looked up at the screen,darts odds-phill taylor 1-50 against some unknown player who was 12-1! Now where the hell is the value in that,surely they should price him up bigger,i just walked straight out the door in disbelief,i might not make a great deal on betfair but at least you know your getting value.
that it is a disgruntled FOBT mug who is responsible for them.
