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Not sure if “Over the counter” is still the most popular way of betting but been in my local bookies (Ladbrokes) over the Cheltenham period has shown the shop staff to have a few deficiencies in working in a betting shop environment. How do they hire these staff and what training is given. A few examples are :-
1) Put a bet on for my mum – William Henry won at 28s. When I checked the slip later there was no barcode on this and the description “Invalid Receipt”. Probably should have checked this myself. It turned out that there had been a system crash at that exact time and I eventually was paid out on the bet after filling in a claim form.
2) Are staff asked if they have basic mathematics skills? For 3 of the 4 days I went to collect winnings and after deducting the bets I put on I had to correct staff how much I/they was due. Two of them occasions they were short changing themselves.
3) Training – If I hand in multiple tickets there is a way on the system of adding the winnings together. Most staff do not seem to know how to use this function.
4) Again a bet for my mum – Sam Spinner EW. They told me I had nothing to come back on the slip when I presented this. Obviously I corrected them.
5) Ladbrokes promotional offer on the Grid was that you won a free bet if your horse finished 2nd to the SP Fav. I admittedly forgot about this after having a few drinks on Wednesday. Backed Blue Sari in the Bumper. Only remembered about this when I went in the bookies the next day and I didn’t have the slip with me. Had another one on Thursday with Lostintranslation and mum had Sam Spinner. When I went Friday the staff didn’t seem to know about this offer and with the queue behind me building she told me to ring Customer Services to find out the T&Cs
Only two staff on on GC Day at 1pm does not help the situation.
Companies don’t train their staff properly- it costs too much.
How can you hold that against the frontline staff?
I’m guessing the majority of the staff are paid the minimum wage. They work long hours, and often unsociable hours.
The presence of the casino machines in the shops also make for an unpleasant working environment.
I always try and cut them a bit of slack and thank the Lord I don’t have to work there.
Having been a betting shop manager in the eighties and nineties I know there has been a serious lowering of standards regarding staff in betting shops.
I must admit I don’t go in betting shops any more but a few years ago when I did I particularly noticed that staff had little , at best, knowledge of any sport let alone horse racing or football which I would imagine are the principal sports that are bet on in shops!
I imagine that the reason for this is the modern system that allows the machines to settle bets and managers and staff need not have any knowledge of any sport or any results.IMO betting shop staff are now nothing more than cashier akin to checkout operators in supermarkets ( if they have any of those nowadays)
“IMO betting shop staff are now nothing more than cashier akin to checkout operators in supermarkets ( if they have any of those nowadays)”
And that allows the bookies to pay them retail (ie minimal) wages.
Ask them how to settle a Dundee Shuffle!
You don't know what's going on
You've been away for far too long
You can't come back and think you are still mineI did it for about five years and I don’t envy anyone having to do it. I don’t know what it’s like now as I’ve thankfully had better employment for the last four years and I hardly visit shops any more except the one where I used to work as I still know some of them (even then I don’t punt there, says it all really).
Even in the time I did it things got much worse. I genuinely enjoyed it to start with and there was at least some focus on racing and sports but gradually it was all about pushing the machines and we were basically expected to sell whatever gimmicks they came up with on top of that. I was pretty fed up with it all by the end.
There are some decent staff out there, I was one of them as were some (but far from all) of my colleagues. We had good punting and sports knowledge but as time went on it really didn’t matter if you knew one end of a horse from the other to be honest. I think the good staff that are left are probably mostly hidden out of the way in quieter shops in smaller towns/cities. On the limited occasions I’ve been into shops in London or Birmingham it’s been hopeless. They can just about manage a football coupon but I’ve had to give up when trying to bet on boxing on more than one occasion.
I don’t really blame the staff, I’m sure the training is abysmal at best now and the amount of **** you have to put up with, especially in the bigger cities, simply isn’t worth the money. You end up babysitting the various dregs of society all day as anyone with any actual interest in the sport has buggered off online.
The cynic in me says that they want to make shops unattractive to ‘normal’ punters so that they go online. If that’s the case then it’s certainly worked on me. For various reasons, I simply don’t want to go in shops any more.
To address your post, your fourth point says a lot. It must have been put through as a win instead of EW, which anyone would do by mistake from time to time especially if it was busy. I assume you presented the ticket and were given a ‘nah nothing on that one sorry’ which just shows the ‘computer says no’ attitude. It doesn’t take much thought to realise that if someone has given you an apparently worthless ticket then there might just be something wrong with it and you should have a look before telling them there’s nothing on it. Pay peanuts, get monkeys.
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