Betting shops uk history tours
Hands and wagers in the s Games of chance have been with human societies practically from the beginning of time. For most, they see bookmakers as part of the gambling industry. So a starting point for sports betting history can be set loosely in the early s. At this point, Italy was the front runner for casino establishments. During trade between nations, merchants would bring stories to tell and games to play. Card games grew in popularity. This is mainly due to religious reasons.
There were, however, still gentleman wagers and an interest in card games. This would lay the foundations for the beginning of sports betting in the following century. Long before cars and roads changed the landscape of our settlements, horses were still very much a presence in society. They were used for transport, in the military, in parades, and in races. Documented horse racing began in the early s.
Over the next two hundred years, race tracks were built across the UK. The format for racing was mainly a two-horse race, with wagers placed on who the winner would be. Over time, this evolved to include multiple horses. Harry Ogden is the name that takes the credit, but it is likely that others were doing this as well.
Ogden began to create a format where different horses have different odds of winning — meaning not all horses have the same chance of winning. Some may have had a clearly better physique or were known to be quicker than other horses. Ogden declared the odds for each of the horses in a race. Ogden took it one step further. Instead, he included a profit margin for himself. This profit margin was the beginning of sports betting bookmaking as we know it.
Debt collectors in the s At this point in sports betting history, the wagers were mostly being made at the race tracks. There were bookmakers taking bets outside of the tracks, but the risk was significant. Even the wagers inside the race track were risky. The reason for this is that the industry was far from regulated. If a bookie lied about a result, it might be days before the lie was exposed. At this point, he would be long gone.
Without regulation, it was every person for themself. This included ensuring what was owed to you was paid in full. First legislation in In the second half of the s, the Victorian era began to frown on gambling in society. In , the Gambling Act was passed. This made the risks of gambling official.
As a result households were turned into low-key casinos or betting houses. Back to the tracks in After the Gambling Act, betting houses increased in number dramatically. The House of Lords realised that they needed to pass new legislation. The Betting Act made it illegal to own a property for the purposes of betting or gambling. This meant that horse betting could only take place at the horse racing tracks. As a result, the early s saw countless horse racing tracks opening their doors.
A day out at the races became a cultural phenomenon. The s boom As the horse racing tracks continued to grow in popularity, the s were an important decade in the history of betting in the UK. Two key developments took place: the growth of football pools from and the introduction of greyhound racing in Football pools were a precursor of sorts to accumulator bets.
The football pools were classified as a game of skill rather than gambling. As a result they bypassed the gambling laws. For a penny, a person would get points based on how close they were to predicting the scores of a number of games. Gaming Act In response to the opinion that gambling was having damaging social effects in the 19th century a House of Lords select committee was formed.
The committee set out a series of recommendations that resulted in the first piece of legislation brought in by parliament in England to help control gambling was the Gaming Act. The act did not make betting illegal but rather sought to discourage the practice by making all wagers unenforceable as a legal contract.
This meant bookmakers, or bettors, could run off with the money and the law would offer you no legal protections. The Act was set up this way to give police more powers over the working classes while still allowing gambling to take place amongst the upper classes and elite. How very British to have a law that applies differently based on your class! Parts of the Act remained in place right up until If caught accepting bets you now could be imprisoned and so few bookies now risked the exposure of the racetrack.
Whether the Gaming Act did much to stop illicit gambling away from racetracks is unlikely, many carried on regardless as if the Act didn't exist in various betting houses and dens. According to Charles Dickens a house had "sprung up on every street". The Betting Act was therefore brought in making it illegal to use or keep any property for the purposes of betting or gaming.
In combination with the Act this effectively outlawed off track betting. In reality the result was a huge increase in on-street gambling instead. The Acts allowed restricted forms of gambling at designated race tracks and I doubt the government could have predicted how popular this would be with the public. New Victorian social reforms, such as paid holiday for workers for the first time, a growing middle class and new forms of advertisement coupled with the new technological advance of the railway saw attendances grow sharply.
New race courses opened all over the country in response to this demand and special excursion trains were put on to allow all classes of people to attend the new meetings. This is one reason why today Britain plays host to some of the oldest and most famous courses Newmarket, Epsom, Cheltenham, etc.
Greyhound Racing — Working Class Gambling Having licenced gambling at race courses was all well and good and maybe for one week each year working families could travel to one for a day out. For the most part however having a bet was largely restricted to those who could afford to attend races or send agents on their behalf to place bets. Brought over from America, Greyhound racing took off in the UK in the 's with the first characteristic oval track opening at Belle Vue in Manchester in Most greyhound tracks were within inner cities and driven by increasing living standards and worker affluence they flourished at this time.
Dog racing offered a way for working class people to have a bet on their own doorsteps. Most meetings were scheduled in the evening to allow workers to attend after work. The great depression in the 's had little effect on the rise of the sport and the Tote see later began operating at track.
Following the end of WWII attendances spiked with reportedly over 30 million people attending course in , that's more than the whole population of Britain at the time. The gaming act in in combination with the rise of other sports and games and television saw greyhound racing decline from over tracks to now around Read more about the demise of greyhound racing in our article. The Football Pools It was difficult to bet legally on anything other than horse or greyhound racing in the middle decades of the 20th Century.
Many in the aristocracy had 'places' they could go and play various games or bet for money without interference but for those in the working class there was not much facility. When the football pools came along in , founded by John Moores Littlewoods in Liverpool, it offered working class men a means to have a punt on the football that was full of fun but cost very little. A national obsession was born.
The game escaped the gambling laws of the time as it was cited as a game of skill rather than chance, the low stakes nature of the game and popularity amongst workers helped it to survive. Various companies started a football pool but the two most famous were Littlewoods and Vernons and they distributed coupons outside major football games and factories. The lure of the game was the ability to win potentially tens of thousands of pounds for fraction of a penny for each line. The football pools remained the most popular weekly 'betting' coupon up until when it was eventually superseded by the National Lottery in the hearts of the nation.
You can however still play the pools online if you like. This was an unusual move for a conservative politician but it ultimately reflected the times. The early 's was a time for change, people demanded more freedom to do what they wanted, and placing a bet changed overnight from something you did at licenced tracks and in seedy back alleys to a national institution.
I won't cover the act itself in much detail, if you would like to read more about this see our article on Gambling Licences and Law. Lifting Restrictions Over the next 40 years gambling law became more and more relaxed as restrictions were progressively listed. For example, it was only in the early 's that the trebles rule was lifted on football betting. This stipulated all football bets must be multiple bets with 3 or more selections up to this point. Changing Tax Law Until all bets placed in the UK carried a betting levy, this was a 9p in the pound tax that could be paid either on your stake or on your winnings.
By the mid 's many traditional British bookmakers were begging to move abroad to avoid the betting levy. Victor Chandler now BetVictor famously moved to Antigua in the late 's allowing them to run a tax free book for eastern clients.
Fearing an exodus abroad Gordon Brown then chancellor issued a review of gambling, chaired by an old teacher of mine, Sir Alan Budd. For the first time punters could gamble tax free — although in reality punters were still paying this tax as bookies increased their odds margins to compensate. In the internet age many bookies could get around this tax by basing their online operations abroad, this is why you see so many betting sites based in Gibraltar or Malta.
In the law therefore changed again to a point of consumption tax. This now meant if you took bets from the UK you had to pay the tax, win, win for the government. This was enforceable under the new Gambling License see next. See our article for more about gambling and betting tax for more.
This resulted in the Gambling Act and the new regulator, the Gambling Commission. Before the act anyone could set up a website anywhere in the world and take bets from UK customers. Not only did this not result in any tax for the government it also meant punters had little protection from crime and fraud.
The Act was principally focused around creating an open and honest industry where vulnerable people were protected and fraud minimised. The new act also oversaw the new National Lottery as well as other lotteries to ensure maximum proceeds were given to good causes. All bookmakers and betting sites were now required to possess a Gambling Commission licence in order act as a bookmaker in the UK, no matter where they are based.
This act still applies today, to gamble safely in Britain you should only bet with licensed operators. To find out more about the Act and the Gambling commission read our licencing article. This effectively closed loopholes that allowed companies based abroad to advertise in the UK without a gambling licence.
It also changed the tax arrangements to ensure all operators must pay tax on UK profits irrespective of their location. Much of the legislation today focuses around protecting vulnerable people, such as under 18's, from gambling. Massive fines are now levied to companies who fail to promote responsible gambling in particular. As the world of betting progressively moves online it is becoming harder for law makers to ensure they can police the whole landscape.
Saying that the UK in general is ahead of the curve on its gambling laws and better positioned than most countries moving forward. Ladbrokes - Oldest Bookmaker Still Around Today The oldest bookmaker that still exists today is Ladbrokes , I think they can claim the crown of the oldest bookmaker in the world as well as in the UK.
Back in two gentlemen known as Schwind and Pennington went into partnership together acting as commission agents for horses trained at Ladbroke Hall in Worcestershire. Pennington was the trainer Schwind the agent, Schwind's job as commission agent was to back the horses trained by Pennington. In the pair were joined by Arthur Bendir who founded the Ladbrokes name, based on the Ladbroke Hall sign.
Some say the same was a pun on the words "broke lads" although this seems to have been thought up afterwards. Bendir changed the business model of the company from just backing horses trained at Ladbroke Hall by also betting against other horses. This model made the company both punter and bookmaker. The new bookmaker achieved almost instant success and quickly moved to the Strand in London, upgrading to Hanover Square in and as a sign of their success ended up in Mayfair in From their Mayfair location Ladbrokes established themselves as an exclusive bookmaker for high class clients and aristocrats.
Five years later off-course betting was legalised in the UK and Ladbrokes opened some of the first betting shops. The company were embraced the new times and were innovators, they were the first to introduce the fixed odds football coupon for example. Ladbrokes have never looked back and having merged with Coral in are now the biggest betting and gaming brand in Britain and one of the biggest in the world. It goes to show there is a lot of money in modern bookmaking. The Totalisator Board — The Tote Until the legalisation of off course gambling nearly all official wagers were placed at the racecourse on horse or greyhound racing.
Following the and gaming and betting acts the government were now able to monitor and even tax this form legal betting from on-course bookmakers. In the government went one better, realising there was still a lot of illegal off course gambling and seeing the amount of revenue coming from gambling they set up their own Racehorse Betting Control Board under the Racecourse Betting Act The board, set up by Sir Winston Churchill no less, established a state controlled bookmaker with a presence at racetracks across the UK.
The first race meeting at which the body had a presence was the flat meeting at Newmarket in July Pari-mutual betting was the model of the new state controlled body. Rather than having fixed odds that you could bet any amount on instead you all stakes would go into a central pool. Taxes and margins would be taken out and then the winners would receive a share of the pool.
The original body was responsible for both state-controlled betting and redistributing racing funds. The later function was transferred to the Horserace Betting Levy Board. The Tote opened a high street shop in and for a long time was the only place where you could place pool pari-mutual bets.
In the body expanded to allow other bookies to be able to contribute to the pool and this resulted in the Tote becoming one of the biggest bookmakers in the country with bets accepted in over shops. The Tote teamed up with Channel 4 in launching the massive jackpot Scoop6, where punters could win hundreds of thousands to millions by predicting the winners of 6 races. This bet and other totepool bets proved, and still prove today, to be popular with punters. To read more about these bets and how to place them see our Totepool article.
The Tote even managed to stay up with the times launching a hugely successful betting site, www. Betfred have maintained the totepool as a separate brand but have internalised all totepool bets into the main site making the modern totesport site basically a clone of Betfred. If you want to know who was responsible for this it was no other than Jeremy Hunt — what a massive Hunt he is too.
The First Betting Shops - Following the new gaming act in betting shops opened rapidly. The new laws came into place on the 1st May after which shops began opening at a rate of each week and by the end of the year there were an estimated 10, shops open across the country.
It is not recorded who opened the very first shop but by the late 's there were over 15, betting shop premises. The landscape was dominated by Ladbrokes , William Hill , Coral and Betfred in Britain and Paddy Power in Ireland the same names that still dominate the industry today. Additional Acts passed in and brought in licences for other forms of betting, such as casinos and bingo.
The Gaming Act brought together all forms of gambling, including slot machines, under one law controlled by the new Gaming Board. The Gaming Board directly answered to the Home Office. Antigua granted online gaming licenced to remote casinos based in the territory. This was coupled with the launch of the first casino software, Microgaming, and secure payment system, Cryptologic. Seeing the impressive early adoption into online casinos bookmakers began to sit up and take note.
Intertops became the first recognised online sports betting site on the web in , regulated by the then new and first of it's kind, the Kahnawake Gaming Commission. Intertops does not have a UK gambling licence and so cannot legally accept UK customers.
What followed was a cascade of new sites opening, by there were at least known sports betting sites globally. At this time some of Britain's biggest bookies began their move online, from the likes of William Hill , Ladbrokes, Betfred and Coral.
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