Tips on how to behave in a betting shop

[Yet One More Idiot]

Well, Jason did one of these for how to be a good hotel customer, and Raini did one for how to be a good retail customer, now I shall follow the trend and tell you how to be a good customer in a betting shop.

Not all countries have high-street betting shops, even if gambling is legalised. I'm pretty sure in the US, gambling on horse-racing is only allowed at the racetrack, am I right? Anyhow, this applies to betting shops in Britain and other countries.

1) BE NICE. If you're nice to the staff, they will be nice to you. And if something goes wrong (as something is likely to, sooner or later), they'll be more willing to help you out to the best of their abilities.

2) GAMBLING IS TIME-SENSITIVE. If you want to bet on an event, you have to place your bet BEFORE the event starts. DON'T come up to the counter 5 seconds after the race/football match/whatever has already started, and then complain that we didn't get your bet on quickly enough.

3) For that matter, DON'T COME UP TO THE COUNTER AND THEN START WRITING OUT YOUR BET. There are races going off every three minutes throughout the day, usually, and people are always wanting to get bets on; all you're doing is getting in the way of all those other customers who want to place bets.

4) DON'T TELL THE STAFF TO PUT YOUR BET THROUGH FASTER. We know we have to work as fast as possible (see rule #2), if your bet doesn't get on quickly enough it's probably because you waited too long before coming to the counter (about 9.5 times out of 10). Put your damn bets on earlier next time!

5) WRITE YOUR BET OUT FULLY. Bloody hell, this one gets flouted worst of all. A betting slip should contain the following information:
[*] What event you're betting on.
[*] What selection you wish to bet on in that event.
[*] The type of bet you're placing (a single, a straight accumulator, something more fancy involving multiples, etc)
[*] How much you're betting. And maybe the total amount as well, if it's broken up into multiple bets of all different stakes or something.
This isn't just because we wish to be pedantic; it's to help process the bets quickly and accurately in the computer system. Then, we can easily see if your bet has won or lost, and there's rarely anything to dispute. If you start omitting information or getting stuff wrong and then complain that your bet should've won, we might not be able to pay it if we can't work out what the damn bet WAS.

6) TALK TO US - BUT NOT TOO MUCH. We like to chat with our customers, really; in fact, most betting shops tell their staff to chat with customers whenever possible, to build up a better rapport with them. But if we're in the middle of taking a long queue of peoples' bets, or we're dealing with a complicated query, please go away and let us get on with it; we can always pick up the conversation again later, when we're less busy.

7) BE NICE TO FELLOW CUSTOMERS. We get a lot of shit on a daily basis, and most staff get used to this, we cease to be fazed by it. Other customers don't get used to it. If you start hurling abuse at fellow customers, fights might/will happen, and we'll have to call the police. Don't make us do that.

BE POLITE WHEN QUEUING TO PLACE BETS. If you're wanting to put on a bet for tomorrow's football match, be willing to step aside if a queue of other customers suddenly appear who all want to bet on the next race. Their bets are urgent, yours can wait a couple of minutes until after that race has started.

9) DON'T DEMAND PAYOUTS WHEN WE'RE BUSY. Like #8, if there's people trying to put on bets for the next race, let them. Your bet has already won, that's not going to change; you have all the time in the world to collect your winnings.

10) DON'T ASK FOR BETS ON CREDIT. Seriously, don't. It's against company policy for all bookmakers' firms, and if the staff member DOES give you credit, they'll be severely risking their job (some shops even have security cameras behind the counter to catch staff doing this) up to and including immediate summary dismissal. Possibly even being arrested for embezzlement.

11) DON'T ASK STAFF TO LEND YOU MONEY FOR A BET. If you don't have the money to place a bet, that's a sign that you probably shouldn't do it. People are wary of lending money to gamblers for good reason - they'll probably never get it back.

12) DON'T BE SUSPICIOUS OF STAFF. We're their to help you, and to serve you. A lot of customers assume that the staff are trying to rip them off though, which isn't a good way to think of us.

13) DON'T TRY TO FIDDLE THE STAFF. Not like that. Don't try to short-change, or steal from the till when we're not looking, or try and scam us out of money. Any shortfalls in the till at the end of the day have to be reported, and it gets noted on the employee's performance record if we continually have shortfalls in our tills. You might think that the betting shop is stealing your money and you're just "getting even" with the company, but it's the particular staff-member in front of you who'll end up with money problems when they get sacked for repeatedly having a deficit in their tills.

14) DON'T COMPLAIN THAT THE BETTING SHOP IS STEALING YOUR MONEY. You put the bets on, not us. It's your money, you have the choice of whether to place bets, nobody is forcing you to. If you lose, that's your own damn fault, the betting shop is not rigging the results against you.

15) THOSE GAMES TERMINALS - WE DON'T CONTROL THEM. If you're playing virtual roulette on a gaming terminal and you lose, it's not our bloody fault. Don't start telling us off, or complaining, or assuming that us operating some machine behind the counter (usually our till) is what's causing you to lose. Those machines are controlled nationwide by a central computer somewhere hundreds of miles away, and we have no control over which number is picked, it's doing use a RNG.

16) BE PATIENT WITH LARGE PAYOUTS. Contrary to popular belief, we can't just hand your money over straight away if you win thousands (or in some cases, even hundreds) of pounds. If we're on the phone to someone about your winnings, it's to get official clearance from head office to pay it (which we have to do with all payouts over certain thresholds). It does not mean that we think you cheated and are warning anyone about you, nor are we phoning the police or anything.

Don't argue the rules. We know our rules for taking/paying out bets better than you do. For that matter, don't argue over payouts either - all the bets are input into the computer, and the payouts are accurately calculated by the computer. It knows it's maths better than you do. And if the payout registers as zero because your bet was late, guess who's fault it is?
Not ours.

17) Further to above, if we ask you to wait (or come back another time) to get your cash, it's because we don't have that much in the shop. This leads to....

1 DON'T ASSUME WE HAVE A BOTTOMLESS SUPPLY OF CASH. In fact, most betting shops have strict rules to employees that we must not have more than (somewhere between £1000-£1500) on site at any one time.

19) ALSO, DON'T ASSUME WE HAVE UNLIMITED CHANGE. You might think it's fun to repeatedly place a £1 with a £10 note and then feed the other 9 £1 coins into the virtual gaming terminal, but we will run out of change. When we run out of change for the day, that's it.

20) If we say we don't have change, WE DAMN WELL DON'T HAVE CHANGE. Don't go telling us to look in the safe for some more, we mean we've already depleted all the change we had in the safe. Usually results from people assuming we have unlimited supplies (rules #18 & #19).

21) BETTING SLIPS ARE FOR THE USE OF ALL CUSTOMERS. This does not mean that you have the right to make them all into paper airplanes and race them around the shop, or make spitwads out of them, or just scribble all over them to check your pen is still working. We have to order more from our Stationery suppliers, and they take several days to arrive.

22) PENS ARE FREE FOR ALL CUSTOMERS TO USE. But just like above, don't just come into the shop, grab huge fistfuls of pens, and stroll back out. We only stock so many, and have to order more from our suppliers before we run out.

23) OUR TOILETS ARE FOR CUSTOMERS. A lot of them spend all day in the shop, and will need rest-breaks. Don't just come in, use the toilet, and go away again. This has lead to many betting shops locking their toilets. If the toilet is locked, there is a sign on the door saying why it's locked. Don't just come to the counter and complain "Your damn toilets are locked." If it says "please ask for the key at the counter", politely ask for the key and we'll give it to you (or if you're not a customer, we might point out that it's for customers only).

24) SMOKING IN THE SHOPS IS AGAINST THE LAW. Yep, smoking in any public building is prohibited by law. Customers who want to smoke should go outside. This DOES NOT mean they should stand right in the doorway in order to see the next race starting, as they'll get in the way of anyone else wishing to come in to bet.

25) CLOSING TIMES ARE THERE FOR A REASON. If you want to come in and make a long complicated bet, don't leave it until 1 minute before closing time. We have homes to go to, even if you're avoiding going back to yours.
And don't rock up 5 minutes AFTER closing, asking to play the fruit machines. It's not funny.

26) BE CLEAN. Yes, eating and drinking in the betting shop is probably allowed (it is in most, at least). But when you finish your food or drink, please bin the waste. And any ruined betting slips, and losing tickets. Otherwise, we have to take time out of a busy day to go clean up your mess, and if we're doing that, we're not taking your next bet.

27) NO ALCOHOL. This should be bloody obvious - especially as every betting shop in the world has no alocohol signs all over it. It's not just that you risk getting yourself arrested for drinking where drinking is prohibited, but the staff can be fired or arrested for letting you do so. And even worse, the betting shop company at large can have it's gambling license revoked if people are caught drinking alcohol on the premises. Just don't.

2 KIDS. They have no reason to be in a betting shop. I understand if they desperately need to go to the toilet and their aren't any public toilets around, we'll try to help, but otherwise just forget it. Don't bring them in because you want to have a bet, and you shouldn't leave them outside so that you can come in to have a bet either (I've seen people do this). Just take the kid home and/or get someone else to look after them, then come back.

...

I think that's about all I can think of in regards to rules of etiquette and such of high-street gambling. I could probably come up with a few more if I kept thinking about it (I've been typing this for about an hour now! ).

[Jason Tandro]

Wow. This is a lot of stuff I would have never thought about much of this stuff (never been in a betting shop before though).

[tay120n64]

We have a horse track in my hometown (Oaklawn, for those interested) and my mom used to work there, so some of this stuff I have, in fact, come into contact with before.

[Yet One More Idiot]

The laughable thing that I discovered while working in the industry was the fact that it's actually those who are NOT used to betting (ie. their first time) who will tend to be nice and polite and considerate of others, while the regulars act like arrogant bastards all the time, not fully writing out their bets, making a mess, being rude, demanding service instantly if not sooner, etc;....

Familiarity breeds contempt, and all of that....

[Dark_Gaia]

um what is a betting house? we dont have those in australia. we have casinos and rsl clubs and pubs where u can gamble and bet on horses, play pokies etc. but u can smoke and drink at those, which i like. (i dont smoke, just drink)

[EverPhoenix]

Dark_Gaia wrote:

we dont have those in australia.

we do, they are called TAB.

[Dark_Gaia]

oh k. just never heard the term betting house before.

[Yet One More Idiot]

Dark_Gaia wrote:

oh k. just never heard the term betting house before.

Yeah, that's what they get called here in Britain, betting shops. (Or bookmakers/bookies) Because we sell the bets to the customers.

(NO we don't! They're punters, and they're placing a bet, they aren't buying anything! It's a stupid retail mentality that crept into the bookmaking industry however, but I disagree with it. /end rant)