Betting Shops

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Walk down just about any high street and you’ll be met with the same depressing sight; the shabby frontages of the likes of B and M, Poundstretcher, and American ‘Candy’ stores. If you’re looking for cheerful individuality just forget it.

But to my mind when it comes to lowering the tone of an area, you can’t beat that establishment whose sole aim is to part the naïve or the addicted from his hard-earned benefit money, as quickly as is humanly possible. I refer of course to the betting shop, or the bookies; Coral, Paddy Power, Ladbrokes, Betfred and others.

You’ll see them strung out about the place, their frontages at once gaudy and seedy in their corporate colours. Absolutely classy. Not. They’ll likely be very near to a pub, to facilitate easy passage between one and the other.

I’ve no idea what these places are like on the inside, never having been in one. But I visualise counters surrounded by banks of screens with pasty-faced losers staring glassy-eyed at the parade of runners and riders, disgarded betting slips strewn around their feet.

I’d love all these cynical, money-grubbing cunts to crash and burn, but as long as there’s a punter with a pound in his pocket and a burning belief that he knows the winner of the 3.30 at Kempton, it just ain’t gonna happen.

Exploitative bastards, and classless with it.

standard

Nominated by Ron Knee.

70 thoughts on “Betting Shops”

  1. It’s the adverts for these cunts that boil my piss.

    They make it sound like losing all the money for the kid’s new school shoes is a fantastic way to spend your time.

    The cheerful voice on the idiot box advising that there are new and improved ways to spaff your cash up the wall like ‘accas’, free bets / spins and other such shite.

    Ask yourself this question before placing a bet on the ‘dead cert’ some cunt in the pub just gave you. ‘Have you ever seen a skint bookmaker’?

    • “When the fun stops, stop” Is a nice way for these cunts to absolve themselves of all responsibility and place it on the shoulders of the addicted. It’s akin to that Scene in Fury Road when Immortan Joe gets people addicted to water and annonces “Do not my friends become addicted to water. It will take hold of you, and you will come to resent it’s absence”.

  3. I genuinely wouldn’t know how to place a bet in a bookmakers.

    I’m not a gambler,
    If people want a flutter?
    Upto them.

    My grandad used to swear me to secrecy as a small boy,
    He’d go place a bet on the ‘geegees’
    Money they could Ill afford.
    Me his captive sidekick.

    My gran would also swear me to secrecy when she’d bought 10benson & hedges.

    From a early age I learnt the importance of keeping a secret.
    Our family had the same rules as the Mafia over loose lips.

    The FBI could of interrogated a 8yr old miserable for hours and got nowhere.
    They’d of got more out of John Gotti.

    Go fuck yourself!😂

  4. There are currenty eight premier league fooball teams, with one of these companies plastered over there shirt, worth a total of £60M per year. This is set to change for the 2026/2027 season.

  5. The horse/dog/other outcome fais…never mind, try one of the many bandit machines around the walls. One thing is almost certain, you will lose mare than you win.
    Another thing I can’t understand , is buying tips! FFS anyone knowing the cert winner will keep it to themselves rather than shorten the odds.

    • Anybody remember that cunt Horace Batchelor on Radio Luxembourg in the 60s, trying to flog his method to pick the football scores for the pools?

      There really must be one born every minute, because he was on for years.

      Punters it seemed never asked the obvious question; if it was any good, why didn’t old Orace just use it and clean up himself?

      • I’m old enough to remember Horace.
        My parents were very ant-gambling other than playing cards at Christmas for ha’penny stakes.
        My dad said on time ‘I have a hard enough time paying for my own car. I’m not going to pay for a booky’s too’

      • The very man K.

        I was only a teenager in those days,but listeneing to R Lux, I often used to wonder just what Horace sent you for your money.

        Must google it somtime to see if there’s anybody out there who knows.

      • No, I don’t remember much more, as I listened on a lashed-up crystal set concealed by a loose floorboard under my boarding school bed. There was also an evangelical, as I recall, and there may have been someone punting not having sand kicked in your face at the beach.

  6. Trouble is, if you banned gambling, it would just go underground. The trick, as with smoking, is to tax it within an inch of its life, and, unlike any government to date, ringfence the proceeds to mitigate the social damage it causes.

    • Fuck the government. Fuck their taxation and fuck their nanny state. The government only ever makes things worse and charges us for the pleasure of their service.

      If people want to smoke and gamble it’s their business, not yours or the government’s. If they fuck their life up that’s their problem. Natural selection in action.

  7. Not to worry Ron,they are a breeding ground for the Far Right.

    Expect them outlawed next week..

    oh forgot the govt is skint..

    fuck them the cunts.

  8. Horrible atmosphere in those places. Used to put my boss’s bets on for him when I was younger. Lots of desperate looking old men in a fug of cigarette smoke staring at the tv.

  9. The last time I placed a bet was in the 70s on the grand national.
    Well, my gran placed it for me.

    She asked me and my cousin to pick 2 horses.

    I chose Red Rum.😁

    I quit whilst on a winning streak.
    I’m 50p up as a gambler.
    And still got the shirt on my back.

    • Mentioned before I think Mis, one day in the late sixties I shoved a tanner in a one armed bandit. It spat out three tanners which I put in my pocket and walked away. We must be the only gamblers to have turned a profit. Great minds eh?

      • Used to work with this bloke Arfur,
        A degenerate gambler.

        Wed get paid on a Friday
        By Saturday he was skint.

        On the tap, asking his workmates for a loan.

        He’d be in the Casino soon as paid.
        Didn’t have a pot to piss in the rest of the week.

        Like a illness.

      • Thing is Ron,
        Sympathy soon turns to disdain.

        Nobody made him flutter all his money away,
        He should of known better he wasn’t simple or anything.

        Just a deadbeat.

        The bookmakers are parasites but the punters are often cunts too.

        We all used to pilfer sweets at work (night shift)
        He’d steal the budget ones
        Because they were cheaper!!

  10. If anybody is looking for the chance to win a few easy quid in a betting shop – go in and bet on Tottenham Hotspur to lose.

    The bookies for some reason love em.and often give quite generous odds.

    And they’re fucking useless.

    Apart from that – betting shops are a fucking eyesore.

    Good morning.

  11. We have 5 or 6 million out of work who could work, what are they going to do all day, the betting shops like bingo or tea dances for the old folks.

    Essential community hubs, place a 10p accumulator on the race card at kempton and you have entertainment for the afternoon.

  12. The fix is to educate folks in basic maths.

    Also I feel proud to be in the exalted ranks of Ron and Mis having never been in a betting shop and not having a fucking clue how they work.

    • To be honest I’m surprised they are still going arfur.

      Since they are associated with the working class, maybe Keir Stasi will shut them all down for being a bit ‘far-right’ or like smoking does he like the tax they generate too much?

  15. Working in a bingo hall many years ago as an apprentice ( fixing a boiler) I put a couple of bob in the one armed bandit ( appropriate name) when the bingo manager shouted over to me and said, don’t put your money in that thing lad, there’s only one winner. Me…!

    He was right….!

    “Bet365 boss Denise Coates was paid more than £260m in year to March | Executive pay and bonuses | The Guardian” https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/06/bet365-boss-denise-coates-was-paid-more-than-260m-in-year-to-march

  16. Remember those machines were you rolled your coins down onto a belt well I put a shilling down one instead on a hapenny as I saw it rolling away from me I shit myself, 24 times the bet, fuckers wouldn’t give it me back and I had to walk an hour home and explain where my pocket money went. Thankfully a hard lesson well learnt

  17. I remember when it was illegal to gamble in backyards. My father being arrested for placing a 6d each way bet. I never took to it when it became legalised. Had a friend who pissed and gambled all his money away and laughed at me having money taken from my wage for the pension I’m now living on, besides others.

    • Forgotten about the lottery. Bet on it when it first came out and when I didn’t win gave up. Just think of all the money I’ve saved since. I could say its been won.

  18. I shall not cease from mental fight, nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, till I have turned every Paddy Power, William Hill, and McDonalds into branches of the Steaming Pussycat Striptease Empire. What Britain needs is more bump and grind and tassel twirling, and old Rayner in a home for fallen women, Starmer given a decent burial and AnalEase a bloody good hosing down.

  19. Gambling is horrible, the odds are massively against winning overall. Anyone with half a brain knows that. But it’s passed off as entertainment.

    And I hate the TV ads with cunts like Peter Crouch being paid squillions for doing nothing but sitting there looking fecking moronic.

    Sky and Talk Sport do their best to link sport with gambling, especially football. ‘avapint, ‘avabet, ‘avaloss it’s all part of the game mate.

    Vultures.

  20. 2 stories.

    In 198x My ex Mrs put a quid in the bandit at the seaside. After 1/2 an hour she was £140 up. I grabbed £10 to buy our lad some shoes. Got back 1/2 hour later and she was skint again.
    Fucking idiot.

    My (ex) mate Greg called to see me 30 years ago on a Sunday afternoon. We scrounged up enough money for a pint each and £1 left over which he stuck in the bandit. It dropped the £30 jackpot. He supped up then fucked off home with his money having given me my quid back.
    Utter Cunt

    So anyone who falls for this shit is a utter cunt or an idiot or both.

    The purveyors of such services are cunts for sure and the oven is the place for them, scum.

  21. If you want a flutter, fair enough. But why do all the betting shops buy their frontages from Ugly Plastic Signs R Us?
    I’ve still to see a quaint Paddy Power.

  22. I had a bookies it’d be tastefully adorned.

    Sign hand painted in calligraphy by a artisan sign writer,
    Hanging baskets
    Dress code
    And light snacks for the customers,
    Knishes and the like.

    And you could have your arse checked for polyps in the back room.

    Gamble & proctology 😂

  25. Gambling is the current bane of the working class.

    Anthony Burgess (RIP) said ‘They took away our opium. And they gave us beer and football.’

    And now, they have taken away the beer and football. Many pubs and working mens clubs have closed. And football is now for middle to upper class knobheads and foreign tourists. ‘Ordinary’ people can’t afford to get in nowadays.

    And the working class are now bombarded by gambling companies. Every single game on ITV, BT or Sky has adverts encouraging people to bet.

  26. Just look in a betting shop…..4or 5 counters to place a bet and give them money, only one for paying out money to you if you win,that should tell you something

    Cunts the lot of them

    • To be fair, horse racing and the dogs, bread and butter of the bookies, usually have a minimum of 6 possible winners, and most wins are a decent multiple of the stake placed.

      So more bettors than winners would be the norm even if bookies ran books with a 0% proft margin.

      That said, bookies are cunts.

  27. Gambling/Lottery = Idiot tax.
    And get out of the queue, I’m waiting to buy my cheap voddy and bacca.

    • Yes! Far too often I’m at the customer service dept of the local supermarket waiting for some chav cunt who is aggrieved by their total lack of understanding what is a very simple lottery system. Chavs need a cunting of their own.

  28. When I was 17, I dropped off an application form at a local betting shop (paper-style in 1999), I actually ignored them when they tried to call me back for an interview.

    Even my alcoholic uncle told me that I should steer clear of betting shops. That was the best and only advice I ever received from him….. he knew what he was about.

    • When I was 16 I applied for one, think it was William Hill.
      Went to interview where after some confusion they told me I could have a job when I was 18.
      I would have thought counting would have been a must for the interviewer.

      • I don’t think you have to be too smart or numerically-literate to work in a betting shop.

        Shortly after I fucked off that job interview offer, I got a reply back from the RAF (I only did 4 weeks of basic training before I DAOR’d).

        Funny how I did quite well in my mathematics-based tests for the RAF but there was no mathematics test whatsoever to work in a betting shop.

  30. If you look past the betting part, the abundance of these “shops” is actually a good thing given the councils all lver the land seem hellbent on eradicating public toilets.
    The bookies generally has a toilet and the staff dont bat an eyelid if you wander in, empty yourself and leave.

    Don’t get that from the charity shops or barber of questionable tax status who also dominate the high streets.

    • iver, over, what does it matter, we will all be speaking Arabic soon enough anyway

      • Are you implying that these numerous empry barber shops are a front for something else?

        Shock horror

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