News

Tuesday, 10 May 2011 00:44

Traditional bookmakers in the United Kingdom, having enjoyed 50 years of plenty, are now feeling the pinch as online gambling takes an ever larger slice of their lucrative pie.

British bookmakers have had a long innings at making a nice profit on the bets waged by punters on anything from horse races to football matches, rugby or golf tournaments to cricket matches and even on what colour the Queen's hat will be for a royal engagement, like a rare royal wedding, for instance. Many high streets can boast not one but often two or three big name bookmakers gracing their length with independent bookies cropping up in smaller towns and villages across the country. Bookmakers have never had it so good, at least not up until recently with the massive growth of Internet gambling.

It wasn't always this way and up until 1st May 1961, it was actually illegal to operate what we now know as the familiar high street betting shop. The strictly moral Victorian era saw the creation of the Betting Houses Act of 1853, which effectively made it illegal to carry on any kind of organised bookmaking outside of racecourses. Of course, rules will always be broken and attempts to prohibit activities that people like to engage in will always result in those activities being forced underground. In towns and villages across the UK, you could find an illicit den of gambling if you knew where to look.

But the Home Secretary at the time, Rab Butler had the vision to quash the outdated hundred or so year old law and replaced it with the more lenient Betting and Gaming Act of 1961. This allowed bookmakers to open up shop and allow bets to be taken openly. However, in what was seen by many as a backward step, televisions were not allowed in betting shops apparently to discourage younger gamblers from frequenting them. That didn't stop bookmakers applying for licences and by 1st of June, 1962, something like 13,340 had already been issued by the Home Office.

The law was amended in 1986 by the Home Secretary at the time, Douglas Hurd to allow televisions into betting shops and with them followed all manner of extras such as the serving of food and non-alcoholic drinks and hot beverages. Gaming machines and slots also found their way into betting shops and with them an army of younger gamblers who were attracted by the technology.

It was that technology and the advent of the Internet that was to bring about the decline in revenues by bookmakers who had not seen the writing on the wall and expanded into the online gambling arena, such as William Hill and their biggest rivals, Ladbrokes. Now some bookies are closing up shop unable to make a decent profit, which is in contrast to the old saying, "You never see a poor bookie." Now, it seems, you do.