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What a horribly judgemental and condescending article. I think it tells you much more about the inadequacies of the writer than of what she has written about.
This article becomes a waste of time in the opening sentence:
‘As a middle class woman of 29…’ The end of that sentence should read, ‘…I wouldn’t go to a branch of Ladbrokes in Walthamstow because I don’t live anywhere near there.’
Obviously I don’t know the actual bookies she went to but the point is, if you go out seeking misery, you’re likely to find it. What did she honestly expect from a bookies at 10am? There’s no UK sporting event starts until the afternoon, if she’d gone in at 3pm instead she would’ve seen a different atmosphere.
I have however, been to bookies which are as she describes all day long so what do I do? I go to a different one of course!
…but thats their choice and they are doing what they want with their own money.
Are they any more of a mug than someone who….
Spends their money going to a football match or any sporting event
Spends their money going to the theatre
Spends their money on shoes and handbags
Spends their money on cigs
Spends their money going for a meal and an expensive bottle of wine
Spends their money on a night out round the town
Spends their money on clothes
Basically, spending their money on any hobbie/interest they may have…
Exactly. It’s like my betting shop gambling rule #1:
Don’t spend more in the bookies than you would spend in the pub over the same period of time. And that’s whether winning or losing.FWIW, I think she’s condescending. Maybe she exaggerates in order to get people to read her (or her paper to publish her).
She does come across as a sneering, stuck-up bint though.Apart from the earwigs and woodlice comment, can’t see much wrong with it. Nothing there to show she’s a "stuck up bitch". Should not matter if she’s a middle class lady or a working class bloke, she’s only saying what she sees and has every right to do so..
If we are honest, most punters who make the game pay are either phone, internet or racegoers. Very few regularly go in to highstreet bookmakers. So most (emphasise MOST not all) punters in bookies are "losers".
Fact is anyone going to the theatre, football etc. is far less likely to be addicted to their hobby; than someone on the machines at 10am. Who are far more likely to be using money they (and their families) can’t afford to lose. But if anyone wants to shovel money in to those machines then that’s up to them. She has the right to say what she thinks of the betting shop, and to my working class eyes, she’s pretty much summed the place up.
Value Is EverythingShould not matter if she’s a middle class lady or a working class bloke.
Precisely. But it matters TO HER, else she would not have mentioned it.
So most (emphasise MOST not all) punters in bookies are "losers".
Depends what you mean by a "loser". In a strictly economic sense, then yes. But in other senses I don’t see why she, or you or I for that matter, should judge the value to betting-shop punters of their pastime in such a superficial manner.
I think it would be quite understandable if a betting-shop punter were to regard someone who posts relentlessly on forums to people he never meets as a "loser" either.
Agree with that, Prufrock.
It would appear that Ms Gordon is a smoker. Would it be right of me, a fitness enthusiast, to criticize Ms Gordon for indulging in such a disgusting habit, having no respect for her own health?
Peer pressure is the most common reason people start smoking. The desire to be accepted by a crowd and to cope with stressful situations leads to pyschological dependency and in social situations it is often complimented by alcohol.
Would it be right of me to consider Ms Gordon ‘weak’ and / or ‘insecure’ of her own social status? After all, she felt the need to highlight her status during the article.
Of course, people are free to smoke if they please and no one, not even a 28 year old male – of any social class – should be allowed to tell you otherwise.
Comparing the betting shop punter to
‘opening the door is like picking up a rock and watching as the woodlice and earwigs scuttle away’
is incredibly judgemental, condescending and downright sick.
A little bit of advice for Ms Gordon:
When you point the finger at someone, there are three pointing right back at you.
Oh, by the way, for those of you who enjoyed Ms Gordon’s incredibly enlightened article, you can follow her twitter page on the link below:
And just to follow up my recent post with the following scenario’s…
a) Couple 1 – a hardworking couple from Fulham go out for a meal at a decent restaurant and have a couple of bottles of their favourite wine. A couple of hours out and they’ve spent say 150 pounds.
b) Couple 2 – a hardworking couple from a Council estate in West Yorkshire call at their local Chippy and eat their Fish & Chips and then head down to their local bookies and sit in there on the Roulette machine for a couple of hours and they spend 150 pounds.
Why is one of those any more of a mug than the other?
Why is one of those more socially acceptable than the other?
I await responses with interest…
Couple 1 for obvious reasons, because of the taboo of scenario 2, and for what its worth, I grew up on a West Yorkshire council estate.
Should not matter if she’s a middle class lady or a working class bloke.
Precisely. But it matters TO HER, else she would not have mentioned it.
So most (emphasise MOST not all) punters in bookies are "losers".
Depends what you mean by a "loser". In a strictly economic sense, then yes. But in other senses I don’t see why she, or you or I for that matter, should judge the value to betting-shop punters of their pastime in such a superficial manner.
I think it would be quite understandable if a betting-shop punter were to regard someone who posts relentlessly on forums to people he never meets as a "loser" either.
Not sure it does matter to her what "class" she is. Just a way of describing herself. Even if it was, if it is o.k. for working class to be proud of being working class, why should it not be o.k to be proud of being middle class?
Everyone has the right to have an opinion. You Pru are paid to have an opinion on racing. I know one commentator who was pinned against a wall by a trainer who reacted badly to his opinion of a horse’s temperament. She is paid for her opinion on other issues. If a betting shop customer were to call us posters losers, that’s his opinion. Does not matter to me.
If there are winners in this world then there must be losers. Have sympathy with anyone addicted to anything, they should be helped to become winners, but need to take responsibility for their actions.
Value Is Everythingwhat a terrible article talk about taring everyone with the one brush i go to betting shops quite alot and never see any trouble and the staff are usually quite pleasent i think she is painting a very bad picture of betting shops on a whole imho
what a terrible article talk about taring everyone with the one brush i go to betting shops quite alot and never see any trouble and the staff are usually quite pleasent i think she is painting a very bad picture of betting shops on a whole imho
What sensitive souls we all are.
The lady does not go into betting shops – this shop was a one off and she did not like what she saw. She reported on that one experience, what she saw and what she perceived, not the whole UK world of shops, and probably exaggerated it all for effect, as journalists invariably do. She sharply contrasted Royal Ascot glamour with the other side of betting/ horse racing within a shop and there surely is a stark contrast. She did not report seeing any trouble nor anyone being unpleasant and she did not tar everyone with the same brush.
She wrote:
"But you’ve got to try everything once.
And here, in the bookie’s, is the other side of horse racing and gambling, a world away from those glossy Royal Ascot ads full of celebrities that are currently doing the rounds. Hidden behind the cheerful window signs offering odds on various sporting events is a world swimming in misery and White Lightning. Men on fruit machines at 10 in the morning, blokes scuttling dead-eyed to the counter, separated from the cashiers by bullet-proof glass." Thats all I could do after reading this at her sheer ignorance.
Being a journalist (disgusting occupation smelling other peoples **** all the time) who celebrates Christmas after claiming to be a "Jew" making judgmental calls on society when her occupation is all about lying to get shagged by the boss for a pay rise, being a smoker, drinker, leads me to believe she isn’t the rose she thinks she is compared to the "woodlice" she seen recently.
Hackney Wick on a sat morning as an appetiser,
I live literally just up the road! I last went in the Wick Hills about nine years ago to cash a dodgy football slip. A friend was the manager at the time 
First started punting in the Hills on Chatsworth road many years ago. Recently moved to Victoria Park and last went in the Hills on the little roundabout by ‘The Alex’ pub in Lauriston Village the day Katchit won the CH. You get all sorts round there!
not much better for the shops in the weekend FT article by William Leith.
mainly a simplistic account of Betfair, but passing references to shops are:
"grubby"
"desperate poor throwing good money after bad"
"dirty back-street"
"stubby pencil"
"seedy"
"ancient"
"man with a calculator with a pencil behind his ear""Gamcare:….60 per cent of the take comes from these machines.” People go in to bet on horses or football. They hang around. They play the machines. They lose money."
and this:
"If this were 1970…I’d have to wait until the bookie’s opened and pass my money to a guy in a booth, and walk away with my betting slip. I did this regularly in my late teens, as a kind of anti-fashion statement. I remember the long afternoons and the bad shirts, I remember the heat, the vague air of threat, and the smell of anxiety.
Today, I don’t even bother to get dressed. I open my laptop and…"
Bryony Thomas is clearly a sushi munching, pretentious silk scarf wearing (indoors as well as outdoors ), Tory voting snob.
Obviously the very thought of entering a bookmakers’ shop, which to her and her ilk, is no more than a vice den of iniquity for the deprived (and depraved ! ) underclass (
), and evidently anathema to everything that has shaped her very being, and has played havoc with her middle-class sensibilities and in-built prejudices.I hope very much someone smoking a roll- up "tapped" her for a quid – she’ll have sleepless nights just thinking about such a traumatising experience.
I remember the days when most bookmakers had the old tinny tannoy system and a boardmarker ( usually some old bloke ) who chalked up the odds as they came through.
Gambling Only Pays When You're Winning
Think that post says more about your own "sensibilities and prejudices" as an anti-snob than hers Himself.
Ginge
A member of the Tory voting "working class", not that I believe in class.Hopefully there is more than a touch of irony in your post Himself?
Value Is EverythingI find the article just lazy and depressingly typical tbh but I suppose most people most of the time are content to find what they are looking for – makes them feel good about themselves.
I am curious however in what appears to be the inverse relationship between those that are too shrewd/clever to use/visit bookmakers (i.e. they have no real knowledge of them) and the strong opinions/contempt they have of those that do.
I shall be visiting two bookies this afternoon, a Baldys and a Corals, to watch the racing and maybe have a quid each-way here and there.
Both bookmarkers are clean, spacious and relatively welcoming. The manageress’ and staff in both are (again) relatively cheerful, friendly and when necessary helpful. I can also state, as a fact that on the occasions when I’ve used these two bookies before there was always more people (75%) playing the gee-gees and dogs than there will be playing the machines and as I commented on before those playing the machines (generally) have and never had an interest in Racing, just like I’ve never had any interest in playing the machines.
I’m not, of course suggesting all is rosy – it isn’t but imv such lazy journalism/blogging does nothing to further the debate of potential problem gambling for I believe for every one person doing their bollocks in a bookies today there are potential dozens doing so in the comfort of their own homes.
Thats all I could do after reading this at her sheer ignorance. 
I live literally just up the road! I last went in the Wick Hills about nine years ago to cash a dodgy football slip. A friend was the manager at the time 
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