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Casinos have done it for years. Dostoyevsky’s book, The Gambler, was based on himself going into Wiesbaden’s Grand Casino in the mid-19th century and losing all his travel money playing roulette there. I haven’t actually read The Gambler, I only know because I was in Wiesbaden in August, but I imagine it’s just one long tirade against casinos and how the croupier fixes the spin of the ball and how there’s a magnet in the roulette wheel…
And my post wasn’t directed at anybody in particular, it’s just the usual response in my experience of working in a bookies for 2 years. My list of how to ‘kick it’ was probably very harsh, but the main factor people need to stop playing them is a desire to stop playing, and to never have the feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you have just done your bollocks ever again.
It’s been a very, very long time since I had that feeling. I remember getting it on at least 2 occasions, maybe 3. It’s a feeling I believe all gamblers should get at least once in their lives and remember exactly how it feels, how hot your head feels and what thoughts are going through your mind, because that feeling, more than anything people can tell you or advice you, is what will help you stop gambling the most.
I agree with most posters on all this, apart from Zarkarva’s slightly patronising pontification regarding the "victims."
Listen, no one is saying that individuals don’t have to help themselves, but do you really think it is that easy? That life is a serene, straight line for each individual? Sometimes peeps run away from a problem (I’ve done that) or are clinically depressed for a variety of reasons (been there) – some which may NOT be their fault and a multitude of other reasons as to why they gamble in extremis.
By your contention, Zark, whatever miserable event happens to an individual is their fault? Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t.
There are occasions where people needed to be protected from themselves and others.
I DO feel sympathy for people who have an addiction of any sort and can’t get out of it. Yes, they have to admit it, but bookies do not discourage people who are blind drunk to bet (seen it many times) or not quite with it (e.g. mentally ill/below par).
And yes, there are thick people out there…not sure really what to say about that, just a shame that they can’t smarten up a little about certain things – such as roulette usually equals shafting.
I think it was Matthew that talked about the 97% and how the longer you play the more likely you are to lose. Absolutely, you can’t win long-term. You’ll have good days and bad days.
Hmmm, isn’t that like something else we all bet on?
Zip
By your contention, Zark, whatever miserable event happens to an individual is their fault? Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t.
Absolutely not. Perhaps I’m being ‘blind’ here, perhaps you’re right, people need to run away from other things so they do something else, no matter how stupid it seems. Just seems a strange thing to run to.
I DO feel sympathy for people who have an addiction of any sort and can’t get out of it. Yes, they have to admit it, but bookies do not discourage people who are blind drunk to bet (seen it many times) or not quite with it (e.g. mentally ill/below par).
This is a difficult one. What right did I have as an employee of Coral to approach somebody and tell them they were addicted to gambling? What would Coral have done had that person punched me or worse?
Whether they’re mentally ill, again, who am I? I’m not a doctor. I’m not a psychiatrist. How am I to tell?
I think it was Matthew that talked about the 97% and how the longer you play the more likely you are to lose. Absolutely, you can’t win long-term. You’ll have good days and bad days.
Hmmm, isn’t that like something else we all bet on?
Roulette is chance. You cannot determine what the next number will be based on a number of facts or figures.
OK, Zark, fair enough responses on the points I raised.
I can imagine you may have been in a difficult position re dealing with vulnerable customers and dealing with your bosses!
I can’t conclusively say that I know some of the people who appear mentally ill in the bookies are definitely so, but I know someone who’s pissed
I’m not saying all bookie staff are uncaring and don’t get distressed seeing fellow humans (punters) going through such misery. I think there are staff members that don’t like it and would want to discourage those people from coming in, but when you consider how heavily the bookies promote the machine now, I suspect that would not go down well with senior managers.
Zark – did you not have some regular punters that you genuinely liked or cared about?
And my correction – it was Marcus, not Matthew who gave the sound explanation of the roulette percentage over time.
Zip
Zip, as a fellow punter and hater of casinos, chance-games and FOBTs, I would very willingly tell any punter that came through the door to the shop every single tiny thing I knew about the FOBTs and how much money they made for the shops.
I worked in the Coral shop in Chesham on a few occasions. A real dive. There’s a Betfred in the high street but they’d chosen not to do a refurb when it opened up. Hills got permission to open a shop there and before work even started on the place, Coral did a complete refurb of their shop. I can’t remember the exact figure it cost, but the next time I worked there I went through the previous year’s profit OTC and it just about covered the figure I was told, before even beginning to talk about rent, wages, electricity, etc.
I’d been pushing for a refurb in my shop due to the high-staking nature of the place and thought it was only fair on the punters, but the area manager refused point blank. When asked why the Chesham shop had had a refurb given it’d be near enough 18 months before the shop could pay for it given the OTC profit, I was told it was simply down to the FOBTs. Coral didn’t want to lose their FOBT customers to Hills, and since my shop had no FOBT customers to lose to other shops (remote area), a refurb wasn’t ‘required’.
But anybody reading this who plays the FOBTs or is considering it, forget any feelings you may have from my previous posts on this or any other subject. Just listen to the cold, hard facts and numbers.
Betting shops open at 8.30am and 9.30pm. Bookmakers pay for all-weather evening cards to be put on at Kempton, Wolverhampton and wherever else. They want punters to come into the shop – and then start ‘playing’ the FOBTs because they’re bored waiting for the next race to start. Have you noticed that people never say ‘using the FOBTs’ or ‘gambling on the FOBTs’? It’s always ‘playing the FOBTs or playing roulette’. Clever use of words to make it seem more harmless. One punter in my shop between May 2010 and December 2010 had lost £225k OTC and probably the same in the FOBTs. ‘I played on the FOBTs and lost £225k’. Does ‘playing’ seem like a sensible choice of verb to you?
My shop made a profit of £220,000 between September 2009 and September 2010 on the FOBTs alone. We had 3 losing weeks in that entire period.
Why do you think there’s a betting shop wherever you look now? Why are there 13 bookies along Newmarket High Street? Why do you think betting shops are now opening until 9.30pm on Sunday evenings? Why do you think the government allows bookmakers to have 4 FOBTs in each shop?
On a side note, away from the FOBTs, have you noticed the extraordinary amount of adverts for bookmakers that have appeared over the past year? And every single advert regards in-play betting. In the last 6-8 months of my time at Coral, the push on in-play betting was colossal. ‘Quick, high turnover with good levels of profit’ my area manager told me. And it requires sod all in terms of man power. 1 person per market looking at Betfair and then adjusting the bookmakers’ prices accordingly. Get a big bet from someone, no problem, lay it off on Betfair and it’s win-win. Either the bookmaker wins, or the punter wins Betfair’s money and then reinvests it in the 2.25 at Lingfield.
In another thread you’ll see that Ladbrokes have been requesting their managers single-man shops at night as well.
High street bookies are utter scum. Most bookies are scum, but particularly the high street ones.
Some people can’t be helped. I’ve heard it all. ‘Look at that ffs, right next to my number’ – if you’ve covering 10 numbers more than 2 numbers away from each other, you’ve got 20 numbers that are right next to yours. It’s odds-on the ball will land on one of your numbers every spin.
‘There’s a camera in the machine and it senses who you are and then if you lost last time, it lets you win, if you won last time, it makes you lose double’
I had one guy shaking the machine trying to make it land on his number.
Every time people put money into the machines, the bookies win. They don’t want you having a bet on the football or horses because the volume just isn’t there. Neither is the intensity or opportunity to bet. It’s also all electronic. You load money onto a machine so it doesn’t seem real anymore. All you’re doing is pressing a button after opening your wallet once. If you had to open your wallet 3 or 4 times and started to notice the amount of notes decreasing, I’m sure you’d start to think twice about ‘playing’.
Strong words from Zar
but were not these
the guys they described
in the Matrix ?
Didn’t they call them
the virus.
Blimey if they’ve
got these exciting machines
in their armoury
we Joes don’t stand a chance.
We should buzz ourselves down
to Orchards and buy ourselves
a retirement card illustrated by
three ladies in the back
..of a speed boatZark, thanks for the honest post.
TBF, in the racing post the tipsters often say they will "play" or "not play" in a horse race. I see your point, but all gambling is exactly that, it’s just that the FOBTs IMHO are the most addictive thing ever to appear. The whole make up of these terminals is to encourage addiction and an all or nothing mindset.
You’re preaching to the converted when you talk about bookies open at ridiculous times purely for the FOBTs. My local one has a £5 match voucher (Corals) where you get a "free" fiver in the machines if you put in £5. However, you have to play through that £10 squids before you can collect anything!
I went into a Ladcrooks in Hammersmith last year and they had EIGHT FOBTs. I wondered how they managed that and asked behind the counter. I was informed that as 4 machines were in another self-contained room with it’s own door and separate betting counter (which was redundant and not staffed) it was classified as another shop. The address was even different form the real shop it was attached to…the only thing bewteen these "two shops" is the transparent electric door that connects them!!!
Tis sad, agreed.
At least you tried to put people off – were you the manager there? (coz otherwise you could have been told off by senior managers?)
Zip
I was. Never heard a word from anybody. Phoned round every single shop in the entire region after 9.30pm closing on Sunday was announced, trying to start some sort of petition against it. 2 months later someone grassed me in, Area Manager phoned up and jusr said the usual bullshit. Next time he came around, he said ‘we offer a service, I mean for example petrol stations and supermarkets stay open until 10pm’….
Yes, that was his response. Seriously.
Coral have now installed a new finger reading machine, no joke. You insert your finger into this machine, it reads the profile of your finger and then signs you on, so management know you’re on time.
I know people clock-in and clock-out of work all the time and have done for years, but that is seriously taking the piss.
Coral also refuse to install a bandit screen or a mag-lock (magnet lock on the main door that can be activated by the flick of a switch) until the shop’s been robbed. The shop in Chesham that had the refit done to it didn’t even have a mag-lock installed. Probably costs about £200 tops, if that.
That Lads shop I’d heard about when it was first opened up, but I didn’t realise it had no counter. That’s pretty irresponsible actually, the Think 21 guys could easily do them over unless all 4 terminals were in view of the counter. 19 year old walks in, plays on the machine for 20 minutes, FAIL.
I went into a Ladcrooks in Hammersmith last year and they had EIGHT FOBTs. I wondered how they managed that and asked behind the counter. I was informed that as 4 machines were in another self-contained room with it’s own door and separate betting counter (which was redundant and not staffed) it was classified as another shop. The address was even different form the real shop it was attached to…the only thing bewteen these "two shops" is the transparent electric door that connects them!!!
ZipGreat posts on here.
And so the opportunities for unlimited High Street "fun" continue:
http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/Ladbrokes-scheme-double-refused-battle-bookies/story-15155928-detail/story.html
Mike
How infantilised we have all become!
I almost laughed when I read about this jerk pumping money into a machine and then crying.
I don’t gamble on fixed odds betting machines. They are for w***ers.
We live in an epoch where all sorts of bad behaviour is justified by being grandly termed an illness. Gamblers who just want to win without effort, study or complication, who just want to be lucky all the time, well, what are they? Stupid and childish. It is tantamount to declaring you want a blow job from a sexy stranger every time you leave the house. Nice idea, but hey; there’s this thing called reality. Get an edge or get out of the way.
If shrinks called gambling addicts chronic mugs there would be less gambling addicts parading their illness around.As superpunter and casino manager De Niro says in Martin Scorsese’s Casino:
the cardinal rule
is to keep them playing…and keep them coming back.
The longer they play,
the more they lose.
In the end, we get it all.
It’s all been arranged to get your money. . .Morning all
An interesting and thought-provoking thread. I agree with much of what’s been said and while I’ll try to choose my words carefully, if I offend anyone, I apologise in advance.
I live in East Ham, a cosmopolitan part of the world where you will hear many languages spoken on the High Street including English. The betting shops and the FOBTs do well here because the one thing all these cultures seem to share is a love of gambling. Be they Tamils from Sri Lanka, Romanians or Chinese, they all (with the notable exception of the Muslims) enjoy a gamble.
Not a flutter, they come from countries and regions where horse racing as we know it is not part of the culture but they can understand a slot machine, roulette or poker because these transcend national cultural divides.
Successful bookmakers paying an ever-larger amount of tax to the Government means that under the veneer of liberalisation, the FOBTs advance unchecked. I have no sense of the damage they are causing to individuals and families but at a time of growing unemployment, the groups of men who congregate in and around these betting shops from dawn to dusk and beyond are a growing and pitiful sight.
I have the same view of the Lottery as I do the FOBTs – it is a stealth tax on the poor. The sheer improbability of scooping the pool and the awful dividends on offer make it not worth playing on any level yet the truth is for many a lottery win is their only realistic prospect of a life-changing event.
I’m reminded of my visits to Vegas – the Hotel casinos are sparkling and friendly, the restrooms immaculate. Mrs Stodge tells me she never feels as safe as she does in the casino at our hotel. And yet I can’t help but feel but beneath the facade there is a lot that the tourists don’t see and I suspect there are big issues with gambling addiction that Vegas doesn’t want ther world to see or hear. You only have to go a little way off the Strip to see things aren’t as glamourous as the brochures suggest.
I almost laughed when I read about this jerk pumping money into a machine and then crying.
I can imagine you did.
Tell me, were you laughing at his misfortune or your innate superiority over him?
Was it the
schadenfreude
of his misery that made you so amused or the unblemished perfection of your own life?
Remember, all you need is ignorance and confidence and success is assured.** You sound
very
successful to me.
Mike
**Not sure who first said this but I doubt it was from a derivitive mobster flick
Everyone should be able to do whatever they please with their money but we should also act responsibly when need be.
While I don’t feel any sympathy for those who lose everything they have on these machines it’s what it can and does way too often lead to that bothers me.
For many people these machines have catastrophic ramifications and getting caught up their web in can happen to anyone as they are an equal opportunity anti social monster.
There’s hardly a country in the world who hasn’t banned them somewhere at one time or another due to their connection with the rise in crime.
It’s all over the internet for anyone to see which makes the UK Government a bunch of couldn’t care less morons as long as the money comes in.
It’s easy to sympathise with the view – and the gut reaction is – that those who play these machines ‘deserve all they get’ particularly as the blame culture continues in the ascendancy in opposition to the descent over the horizon into history of that wholesome trait, a sense and duty of personal responsibility
The thoroughly unwholesome traits of fecklessness, impressionability, selfishness and weak-will evident in those who hurl money they can’t afford to lose into these machines are indeed distasteful and ire-inducing, but those traits tend to be those of society’s vulnerable and ill-educated
So it seems to me that what’s much, much more distasteful is the bookmakers’ deliberate preying on these unfortunate types in order to generate guaranteed profit. They surely know that the majority – those blessed with an ounce of common sense, a smidgen of self-control and a cursory mathematical education – wouldn’t touch these machines with the proverbial bargepole
The manipulation and goading of the softest of targets for personal financial gain – yuk
Incidentally are these FOBT things simply what I call Fruit Machines?
If so, what is the minimum stake and maximum payout?
Is Probability For Dummies a core part of the GCSE Mathematics curriculum. And if not why not?
Usually disagree with him, but he is talking absolute truth and 100% sense. The Coral I work now in a suburb of Huddersfield, pretty rough area, plenty of regulars with their round robins and lucky 15’s etc, and turnover and profit from the machines absolutely staggering. Have to bank the money personally, shop has been done over twice in the last year, things combining like this makes it a very scary place. Amount of money the place makes, and we have to walk 10 minutes to the local post office with about 2k, 5/6 days a week, risking our lives for the place.
Last years profit was 250k, don’t make that from Eddie and his 10p EW Lucky 15’s and Frank with his 10p Round Robins.
Meanwhile, there are still some even bigger mugs who think that Betting Chains actually have any interest or care in what happens to horse racing in this country.
Professor I think that everyone who works for a bookie that has FOBTs should read your post if they have trouble sleeping at night. It might make them feel better.
I can see this from both sides, the compassionate and the uncaring.
On the one hand I know that people at a low ebb will do desperate things no matter how nonsensical it seems to those not in their position. On the other hand I had to laugh when Zarkava recalled the man shaking the computerised roulette machine in order to try and get it to land on his number.
Underlying all of this though is human greed, whether it be pouring money into FOBTs or sending money to internet scammers in order to collect your winnings on the foreign lottery you never entered, where people’s greed is concerned their brains seem to go out of the window.
I buy lottery tickets even though I know that there is more statistical likelihood of being murdered than winning the jackpot and that if you do will you’ll get £2million from backing a £14million to 1 shot. It is a poor decision but not one that will ruin my life of the life of my family and the games are limited to one or two draws a day (if you include the execrable Daily Play,) rather than 6 times a minute.
I’ve not been in a Bookies for a long time but there seemed a disproportionate amount of heavy drinkers and the mentally ill in there and a smattering of truly pitiful chronic gamblers.
I’ve read that for addicts the addiction itself whether it be drink, drugs or gambling is not the problem, it’s their attempt at a cure. They have something else in their life they are trying to hide from and it is the oblivion of their addiction that stops them being confronted by it.
Personally I think that the FOBTs should be restricted to licensed casinos.
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