Since 2019, the UK has lost 30% of its bookmakers. Photo: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
On a kilometer-long stretch of highway that runs from Stratford in east London to Leytonstone, eight bookmakers are located within walking distance of each other.
The spectacle has become a common sight across Britain over the past 20 years and has often been used to illustrate the decline of the high street.
However, while the proliferation of bookmakers in similar locations across Britain may indicate a booming industry, bookmakers offices are in decline.
The number of large bookmakers in Britain has recently decreased by about 30%. five years, according to Local Data Company.
During this period, almost 2,400 people closed their doors permanently. The scale of this decline makes bookmakers the second fastest-growing business on UK high streets after bank branches.
This does not mean that the British have lost interest in gambling. Excluding lotteries, UK industry gross profits (the amount companies took home after deducting player winnings) rose 9.3% to £10.9 billion in 2023, according to the Gambling Commission.
What has changed is their presence on the high street.
Major brands including William Hill and Ladbrokes have closed hundreds of sites during the pandemic. Closures have slowed since lockdown restrictions have eased, but data shows they are still falling faster than in 2018.
A combination of tighter regulation, soaring costs since the pandemic and the struggle to attract younger gamblers to gambling. The high street has been blamed for a decline in their numbers, but also, crucially, for a wider shift towards online gambling.
“People used to go to a bookmaker and place a bet, now you just do it sitting down on the couch,” says one industry source. “There is no justification for creating a huge nationwide network.”
Bookmaker revenues at William Hill owner 888 Holdings fell 7% in the first three months of 2024, which it said was due to a 2% fall in store numbers, while Entain, owner of Ladbrokes and Coral, said about a 6% fall in bookmaker sales over the same period.
“It’s a business and if you manage to maintain your earnings on last year’s levels, that’s a success,” says Andrew Tottenham, gambling consultant .
Perhaps the most important factor is that these rules, introduced to limit what was until 2019 the most profitable asset of gambling shops – fixed odds betting terminals (FOBT), have simply made the series unprofitable.
Introduced in the late 1990s, FOBTs allowed customers to bet up to £100 on the outcome of various games such as roulette. They were limited to four stores per store, but by opening a group of stores in one area, companies could get around this limitation.
“It was an absurd thing,” says Tottenham. “If you were allowed four machines, suddenly everyone would start complaining because there were a lot of bookmakers on the high street. If you said, “Well, you can have 25 machines,” you would see fewer bookmakers.”
However, as the prevalence of machines increased, the rate at which customers could lose money and issues surrounding their addictive nature have made them the target of calls for suppression.
Speaking ahead of the ban in 2018, Matt Hancock, the then culture secretary, said: “These machines are a social blight and prey on some of the most vulnerable in society, and we are determined to end it and build a fairer environment.” a society for all.”
Amid warnings of mass bookmaker closures, new rules have been introduced limiting FOBT bets to £2.
In addition to tightening FOBTs, post-pandemic bookmakers have faced the same high utility costs and wage increases as other retail and hospitality businesses.
At the same time, bookmakers face the challenge of how to attract younger customers who are used to doing everything on their phones.
“The general trend is that high street shoppers are aging,” says Tottenham. “People are dying, they are not being replenished, younger people are not entering the market. [Paper sportsbooks] have evolved to cater to a certain age group… it's not very interesting for young people.”
The last decade has also seen a significant shift towards online gambling, which has been exacerbated by the pandemic, resulting in the opening of brick-and-mortar stores became a less attractive prospect for operators.
“Players who wanted to bet on sports were included and the desire to play some casino games moved online during that period,” says Vaughan Lewis, Director of Strategy 888.
However, he insists many customers have now returned to betting in person and that there is still room for bookmakers on the high street. “There is a really large and stable base of loyal punters who enjoy going to bookmakers, whether it's for the social aspect, whether [they] prefer to use cash or just to kill time or have something to do.
< p>“In terms of their popularity, the intensity of their use and the overall costs per store, everything is very similar to what it was before Covid and the changes before FOBT.”
While the UK remains a lucrative market for gambling companies, other parts of the world are now proving more attractive to executives. These include the United States, where demand for sports betting has exploded after a 2018 Supreme Court ruling allowed states to set their own gambling rules, and Brazil, where gambling restrictions have been eased.
“Personally, I think the UK is one of the most challenging markets due to its maturity and the presence of some giants with very distinctive names that are simply known to customers,” says Vlad Kaltenieks, chief executive of Irish bookmaker Boylesports, which orchestrated the UK expansion in recent years.
In addition to competition from other bookmakers, bookmaker owners are increasingly faced with the prospect of competition from so-called adult gaming centers that offer a wide range of slot machines. These shops offer a variety of casino style slot machines, usually with £1 and £2 stakes. Many have applied for 24-hour licenses across the UK, worrying campaigners concerned about the potential harm to the public.
“With the bookmaker's closure, demand for other machines has increased,” he says. Tottenham. “Naturally, where do people who are used to playing these machines go?”
Representative of Betting & The Gambling Council (BGC) said: “Bookmakers support around 42,000 jobs on Britain's busy high streets, contribute £800 million a year in taxes to the Exchequer and a further £60 million in business betting to local councils. “.
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