Quote:
Originally Posted by Kizzy
How did bookies make money before fixed odds betting terminals? ... good close dome stores, no high St needs every other shop to be a bookies. I predict the move to restrict the stake will aid the economy as more people will have money to put into it not just funnel it into the pockets of the bookmakers.
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There's enough racing and football trade to support a number of shops, and pretty much, there were far fewer shops. I'd say that the number of closures more or less reflects the number of shops that were opened purely for machines - although IMO it's being used as an excuse to cut other shops that were already dead weight. They'll use the FOBT limits to justify redundancies that are primarily for other reasons.
Ladbrokes and Corals as separate companies before they merged, had a policy of keeping open unprofitable shops in order to maintain brand loyalty and brand awareness. GVC (the offshore company that now own the merged LadbrokesCoral PLC) abandonned that policy and were planning to offload unprofitable shops anyway. I think the machines changes are, partly, a convenient excuse.
You're also right that the machines are still profit magnets in busy shops even at £2 stakes. Especially because slots have a much higher profit margin than roulette and blackjack. At the point I left I'd say everything had pretty much stabilised and the stakes changes resulted in approx a 1/3 drop in machines profit... My shop was still making £25k a month on FOBTs, easily, plus there was a fairly significant upswing on virtual horses and greyhounds (£100-a-spin roulette guys will bet £200 on a dog without breaking their stride) and also the Betstations (sports betting machines) are flying.
I'm not saying that any of this is a good thing. I say ban casino games and slots everywhere except actual physical casinos, and just flat out burn the rest of the industry. It's a juggernaut designed purely to make legitimate profit from addiction. There's no two ways about it. Internally they barely bother to even pretend otherwise any more.