Paddy Shower fined

when something is known as the crack cocaine of gambling...its high time the machines were treated the same way as the substance..they need banning from our high streets

great PR for what judged on that looks like an awful company and a dreadful advert for the gambling industry

unfortunatley..most folk associate betting shops with horse racing..so a massive kick in the balls for our sport as well once folk see that.
 
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There would be no shops if the machines went. That's why there are so many shops.
My local shop manager told me they take over £20k per week on the machines.
 
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harry said:
There would be no shops if the machines went. That's why there are so many shops.
My local shop manager told me they take over £20k per week on the machines.
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i know..its vile..the docu last year with corals showed you what lengths they go to to open up shops close to one another just so they can have more machines per each area
 
Bookmaker shops are simply the 21st century version of penny arcades and if these things had been about before the introduction of online betting I've no doubt my life would have taken a completely different path.

There but for the grace of God and all that...
 
There are plenty of betting shops in Ireland but no machines. They won't disappear in the UK if the machines are banned there too.
 
I'm not sure that they would.

These people are addicted to gambling, not machines. Remove the machines, and they will probably spunk their dough on either virtual dogs or sand-dancing instead.
 
Do you think that the multiple shops opened so that FOBTs can be put in them are sustainable without the income they generate?
There is addiction to gambling I agree but these things are like Crystal Meth in the addiction hierarchy
 
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If a junkie doesn't have access to crystal-meth, he will drop down to the next readily-available drug that will help him get off his tits, Harry. He won't suddenly stop getting off his tits through his preferred drug being unavailable to him.
 
The money laundering side of it is very real.I was in a Ladbrokes in Haringey a few years ago when I was working in London and there was literally thousands going in the machines by a group of who I thought at the time were Yardies.They were openly smoking reefers and the staff just accepted it all!Quite an intimidating place.
 
Grasshopper said:
If a junkie doesn't have access to crystal-meth, he will drop down to the next readily-available drug that will help him get off his tits, Harry. He won't suddenly stop getting off his tits through his preferred drug being unavailable to him.
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A junkie on Meth or crack will spend multiple times more than a person addicted to booze or who likes to smoke weed. Both will result in you getting off your tits, one will cost you hundreds or thousands a week and lead to crime etc to fund it

What I'm trying to explain is that these machines are designed for high addition rapid spend.

If you think the "new" shops within yards of each other would still remain if the machines went, we will agree to disagree.
 
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I don't really have an opinion on what will happen to the shops, H........I'm just saying that clearing-out the machines won't save these people - they will just spunk their dough on their next addiction.
 
harry said:
A vast majority of them will
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The UK currently has about 9000 betting shops while Ireland has about 900, which is not out of line when you take relative population size into account. No doubt the heavy concentrations of shops in some parts of British towns would reduce if FOBTs were banned but the Irish experience suggests that most shops would probably survive.
 
What you are missing Grey is that gambling on horses and football is part of the social fabric in Ireland -North & South.
I walked around Aintree with a local bookie in the early 90s and he told me at the time Waterford had 37 betting offices and a similar sized town in Wales had 2.
In a couple of weeks time there will be no getting away from the coverage of Cheltenham in Irish Newspapers and radio stations -in ten years of living in London it was very hard to walk into a strange pub and ask them to put on any race at Cheltenham.
 
You have a point, LUKE, the comparison is not entirely like with like. But nor is yours, because Waterford is a regional capital with a big hinterland while a similar sized town in Wales will have a much smaller catchment. Also, there has been a big expansion of all types of betting in both countries since the early 90s.
 
There has indeed been a massive expansion-mainly online.My local shop would have had at least 3 cashiers on any day in the late 80's-wasn't unusual to see 20 people at the counter as a race was about to start.It was an incredibly social environment where doctors, engineers and solicitors rubbed shoulders with people who had never worked a day in their life.
I don't think this was unusual in Ireland or England but those days are definitely gone -they are of undesirables these days.
 
Just had a chat with a shop manager: 88% of his business is machines. Shop would close without them. Shop is graded on machine performance which determines staff wage.

This could explain the link in the OP
 
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