History Of Betting Shops In Uk
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In 1960, the UK paved the way for licensed betting shops to be opened and this helped to take gambling away from the pubs and into more regulated premises. The 1963 act simply tidied up some of the. The number of betting shops in the UK peaks at 14,750. 1988 Grand Metropolitan, owners of Mecca Bookmakers, acquire William Hill and merge the two companies under the William Hill name. But when betting tax came in and we started trimming the odds, it became a business.' John Banks, who owned a chain of betting shops in Scotland, and who later became one of the biggest racecourse bookmakers, described the shops.
With over 4,000 betting shops between them, Betfred.com, Coral.co.uk, Ladbrokes.com, PaddyPower.com and WilliamHill.com are the best high street bookmakers operating in the UK.
Before Going to a Betting Shop
Don’t dash straight off to a shop, one thing that high street betting shops don't offer customers is the bonus bets and betting offers that they do when you bet online.
Don't forget to check out alternative bookmakers signup offers before visiting your bookmaker's high street betting shop as you may be able to grab yourself a bonus bet.
Find a High Street Betting Shop
If you really don't want to bet online and claim a signup offer, finding the closest high street location of a Betfrd, Coral, Ladbrokes, PaddyPower or William Hill betting shop is easy.
Click a bookmakers 'Betting Shop Locator' button below to find the nearest shops to you.
- Signup online at Betfred.com
- Bet £10 on any market they offer
- Get £30 in free bets and 60 free spins!
Betfred Betting Shops
There are more than 1,600 Betfred betting shops throughout the UK, so you're probably closer to a shop location than you think. Betfred betting shops offer live broadcasts of UK and Irish horse races and knowledgeable staff. Click the orange button to locate your nearest shop.
- Signup online at Coral.co.uk
- Bet £5 on any market you want
- Coral then give you 4 x £5 free bets!
Coral Betting Shops
With more than 1,600 Coral betting shops across the UK, you're never far away from betting at Coral. Coral betting shops have comfortable café areas and TV's featuring live action from all the days sporting events. Find out more about Coral betting shops by clicking the orange button.
- Signup online at Ladbrokes.com
- Place a bet of just £5 on any sport
- Get given £20 in free bets (4 x £5)
Ladbrokes Betting Shops
With 2,200+ locations across the UK, you're probably closer to a Ladbrokes betting shop than you realise. Use our Ladbrokes betting shop locator tool to find the nearest high street shop from your current location. Find out more about Ladbrokes betting shops by clicking the orange button.
- Signup online at PaddyPower.com
- Bet £20 on any market you want
- Get money back in cash if it loses!
PaddyPower Betting Shops
Irish based PaddyPower run over 100 betting shops across the UK, with each location providing a clean and modern environment to bet in. PaddyPower betting shops also provide live betting terminals. Find out more about PaddyPower betting shops by clicking the orange button.
- Signup online at WilliamHill.com
- Bet £10 on any market you want
- Get given £30 in free bets!
William Hill Betting Shops
There are 1,500+ William Hill betting shops across the UK making them the largest high street bookmaker by some way. William Hill betting shops also offer sports betting updates, results as well as refreshments. Find out more about William Hill betting shops by clicking the orange button.
Betting Shops History
High street betting shops have come on in leaps and bounds over recent years and are now a far cry from the seedy and secretive back street establishments that they were.
Todays modern betting shop locations are more high street than back street and offer UK punters an excellent environment to safely place bets and socialise in.
The success of online bookmakers are the main reason for the resurgence of betting shops as they've put a lot of their profits back into the betting shops you find on the UK high street.
Not only has this improved their image, it's also improved the atmosphere.
About ‘British Bookmakers’
Our mission is to help UK punters bet at the best bookmakers. We review and rate online bookmakers, their signup offers and betting offers and only showcase the best.
Bookmakers we feature are safe and secure betting portals aimed at UK residents.
Until the Betting and Gaming Act of 1960 was introduced to British parliament, gambling in the United Kingdom was either done at racetracks or via illegal bookmakers that essentially operated on the black market. The existence of such bookies can be dated back to a time when a man named William Ogden offered fixed odds on all of the horses in a race, which had never been done before.
Nowadays we take that sort of thing for granted, but it was revolutionary when Ogden started doing it and other people, then companies, soon followed suit. This eventually led to Betting and Gaming Act being passed, which was the government’s attempt to control (and of course tax) an industry that it knew it would be able to outlaw altogether. Within six months, 10,000 such shops existed on Britain’s streets, but do we know which was the first?
The Build-Up To Bookmakers Becoming Legal
Bookmaking had been a popular activity in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries, but such an activity soon resulted in opposition factions rebelling against it. Eventually this led to the Gaming Act of 1845, which essentially outlawed bookmaking and forced the bookies underground. All that happened was that arrests for gambling went up, so the Betting House Act of 1853 was introduced.
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Still nothing could stop people from wanting to place bets and others being willing to accept their wagers. At the twentieth century got underway, it gradually became accepted that gambling wasn’t going to go away and so instead the question should be about how the industry could be regulated. When alcohol had become a problem, fair licensing laws saw things calm down; could the same happen with gambling?
The likes of Joe Coral and William Hill, who would later become such important names in the betting industry, had cut their teeth as runners for illegal bookmakers. That was positive proof that something needed to be done, so the Royal Commission on Lotteries and Betting sat between 1932 and 1933. Despite the passing of the 1906 Street Betting Act, the Commission soon learned that it was unlikely a single bet had been stopped because of it.
The likes of William Hill and Joe Coral had been using a loophole in the law to accept postal bets, leading to the Commission discussing the possibility of legalising betting shops. In the end, the outbreak of the Second World War ended up taking the main focus of politicians, but when the War was over a second Royal Commission was formed to continue the work of the first.
Henry Willink, who was the Chairman of the Commission, agreed with his partners that the issues many people had with gambling had been formed out of a misplaced sense of morality by the Victorians. That, on top of the realisation from the government that a large revenue could be brought in thanks to taxing a legalised form of betting, led to a sea change in the thought process of many around the idea of legalising betting shops.
The Act Is Passed
One of the second Royal Commission’s chief recommendations was that betting shops should be legalised, with anyone running an illegal shop given a licence rather than punished. Despite the government taking the recommendations on board, change was a slow process. It wasn’t until 1960 that an Act was passed that would allow betting shops to finally trade legally on the streets of Britain.
Even then, the Act didn’t come into effect immediately. The Betting and Gaming Act of 1960 wasn’t just about bookmakers, either. Pubs were allowed to install slot machines, for example, whilst small sums of money could be gambled in games of skill like Bridge. It was unquestionably the move to legalise betting shops that had the biggest impact on the industry in Britain, however.
The likes of William Hill, Joe Coral and Ladbrokes had positioned themselves well to ensure that they could act swiftly to the new legislation. By the time that bookmakers’ premises could open their doors on the 1st of May 1961, the major companies were ready to do just that. In fact, the shops began to open up at a rate of around 100 a week, with 10,000 having done so by November of 1961.
What Betting Shop Was The First?
The one question that can’t be answered with any sense of certainty is which shop, exactly, was the first to open its doors. What we can tell you, though, is that a number of companies that are well-known and respected nowadays will have been quick off the mark in terms of opening up betting shops as soon as they were able. The aforementioned Coral and Ladbrokes will have been there, for example.
William Chandler had also founded a bookmaking company in 1946, dying a few months later. His sons, Victor and Jack, took over the running of the company whilst his other sons, Charles and Percy, took over Walthamstow Stadium and the greyhound racing that took place there. That being said, the first Victor Chandler betting shop didn’t open up until 1963.
Similarly, William Hill wasn’t as keen as many of his competitors to rush to open a betting shop. Not only that, he’d actively campaigned against them becoming legal and called them a ‘cancer on society’. He was a socialist, believing that working class people would be the victims of the new shops. Eventually he realised that opening shops was the only way to keep his business alive, deciding to do so in 1966.
Allowed But Never Encouraged
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That betting shops became legal in 1961 and widespread over the years that followed is slightly surprising when you consider the state of the shops at the time. The notion from the British government over the years was that betting was to be allowed but that it should never be encouraged. Consequently, basic amenities were not allowed at betting shops during those formative years, including things like customer toilets.
There was also a desire to ensure that betting shops weren’t seen as appealing places. The windows had to be blacked out, for example, in order to stop people looking in and feeling enticed by the promise of big wins. Similarly, many bookies struggled with the notion of transitioning from being an underground operation to a public one stopping them from embracing what they could offer.
Indeed, horse races were described to punters in monotonous tones, with the mood of the venues being largely dreary. No wonder, of course, given that the legislation introduced allowed them to open but stopped them from offering such basic things as drinks. In fact, it wasn’t until 1986 that legislation was introduced to change that fact. Alongside it, comfortable seating and televised sport were also both allowed.
‘Dragged Out Of The Dark Ages’
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Whilst many still saw betting parlours as being uninviting when the first opened in 1961, others believed that the move allowed them to be ‘dragged out of the Dark Ages’. John McCririck, the one-time betting and racing guru of Channel 4 fame, was one such person. Having previously had to find dodgy locations such as public urinals to place a wager, punters could now do so in relative comfort.
The move also ensured that most of the illegal street bookmakers were wiped out, leaving only the successful ones able to afford the costs of rent on premises, paying staff and having the capital required to operate. Whilst some made it through the vetting process, most didn’t and so the new industry was much more trustworthy for clients to get involved with. John Banks, a Glaswegian, described having a betting shop as being a ‘licence to print money’.
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That’s not to say that it wasn’t dark inside the premises, however. The dark windows obviously stopped much brightness from getting inside, but it wasn’t helped by mesh grilles sitting in front of Formica counters. Back then it was perfectly legal to smoke indoors, so a veil of cigarette smoke would also hang around inside the shops. Commentary on races would be provided by speakers from the Extel wire service.
We might not know exactly which betting shop was the first to open its doors, nor do we have much of a clue which of the venues that opened in 1961 are still open today. Instead, we can just form a vague sense of what it must have been like to head to a bookies to place a bet when it was still a relatively new concept. Such is the extent to which things were out of the hands of the bookmakers, even the weather could dictate if they could open.