Anybody started up their own independent?

Yes.

It's bloody hard. Machines might be good in town centres and high streets, but not necessarily if they're not.
I'd like to see the sodding things banned, and a fairer game for all.
Overheads are massive, hugely more than the big firms pay.

Long hours, little reward. etc etc.

oh dear. did you give up then? or still doing it?

Still at it - Trying to beat the system before it grinds me down.
It's much easier for multiples than independents.

started 15 years ago with about £5K - took over a small shop that the pevoius owner couldn't make pay - it was in a good village location next to a big pub. First 12 mnths difficult , but by 2003 was trading really well - 2008 it was probably worth 100K - GC came along and at a stroke it was worth zilch. T/o now in decline (mob apps/internet) and costs rocketing

Now in my last yesr - all leases/contracts end June next year - still profitable 9 for a one man operator) but will just walk away, as impossible to sell due massive start up costs and 'bond' required by GC. Not big enough for a large chain to buy.

So, to answer your question, it is not viable unless you have £150K behind you (after start up costs) and you can realise t/o of 60K a month minimum in stakes.

hmm. my main thought was trying to attract the big hitters. singles only. though im not convinced these players still exist, outside the internet world. my angle would be something like all 1k singles bets under say 5/1 accepted accross all sports, horses and dogs probably would have to be sp odds only for that i think. no questions asked. no waiting for trader decisions. available for anybody, no matter how often they win. just bet and go. i know from experience most high street bookies have a heart attack if you want to bet 200 quid on most things. so irritating waiting 5 minutes then the guy says you can have 100 on that. obviously it would be risky, it would attract people who know their stuff. but somebody has to have the balls to do it one day.

sideshow - are you serious??

I'm ultra kind (don't bet) to indies as I was one in the past and know some pros who feel the same but not all pros will be so considerate. If you offered that concession you'd be busted in 6 months max. Another problem is big hitters worry about getting paid so why would they bet with a one man band?

If you are looking to offer concessions you want to be offering concessions on multiples and accumulators. eg:10% bonus on all multibets horses after 12pm.

As an ex bookie I'd advise you to figure out what you realistically can generate and at what margin. I had a shop full of dog forecast punters and one person responsible for half my turnover who was a chaser so had excellent margins but low turnover. With the higher costs now you need to be realistic on what you'd earn and the hours you need to put in to achieve that. In most cases it won't be worth it.

Multis used to be bread and butter, but no longer.
Too many people just put their 20p or 50p Lucky 15 on every day, and that's all they do. Even if they cop and win a few hundred, just the same bet goes on. We make nothing from them. This would be different if you have 100's of shops and 1000's of multis coming in, with 1 or 2 shops it's not an earner.
Singles are OK, but not for huge stakes because there's usually nothing to offset them, which means you're just having a straight bet. Stressful.
Horse betting generally is not what it was even 10 years ago.

I work pretty much 7 days a week, and some long hours. The main problem is expenses. SIS, Licences, Duty, Levy, Rentals, all of these being much more expensive than for the big firms. Also there's VAT on everything, which can't be claimed back.
The independents have to make at least twice as much per day as the big firms. This is very difficult.

i meant singles only for the 1k stake, obviously all other bets would be available for low stakes as in any bookie.

i thought i could maybe price up all the (non horses/dogs) sports myself, or come up with a system to offer prices for the more obscure stuff. ie they wouldnt be available until a punter asked for them. most people just bet a few quid on horses and dogs anyway, so theres no need to price much up cept a few big football/cricket/whatever matches. everything else just give a price when someone wants it. probably go with 3rd best price on oddschecker or summat, obviously wouldnt tell the punters. theyd just think we looked at the computer to find the price. it would basically be a way for the pro punters to get on if they cant get on elsewhere. certainly wouldnt be best price or anything like that. but not totally crap odds so nobody would put a bet on.

it would be a perfectly normal bookie in every other way, that would just be a sideline thing. it's only a kernel of an idea at this stage.

im fully aware how shrewd some pros are. but i would want to encourage them to bet with me, not turn them away. theyre exactly the people id want. more pro bets equals bigger turnover. i dont want people wasting my time with 20p lucky 15s, i want the guys with real money coming in to bet. plus the more pros the more info i get on where the smart money is going. if a pro keeps betting 1k with me and winning regularly, im gonna be betting 2k on whatever hes been 1k on in the shop!

obviously im being simplistic and flippant, but the general theme is in there. all big punters would be monitored but in a way they understand whats going on and feel appreciated for their custom. ie monitored so we know how much they are betting, but absolutely no change in the maximum stake policy however often they win. for me there are 3 types of pros. the real pros, the ones who think they are real pros but arent, the ones who are so far but are only a tilt spree away from doing all their dough in. i dont think its that crazy to think in time, building up solid regular custom, that the bets from these people would mostly offset against each other. its not something to be done lightly, i know that. it needs planning out thoroughly.

Let me know if you start up and will take bets on Championship Rugby League Bob

The Oddschecker idea is something bookies do already.
If you take just occasional big bets, they will be just that. Bets.
You wouldn't have anything to offset against them and so would be relying on those selections to lose.

As for laying them off for bigger stakes, that wouldn't work either. Successful hedging accounts are closed just as quickly as successful betting ones. Anyway, if someone came in with loads of 1K bets and was winning regularly and you were standing them all, you wouldn't be in business very long.

There aren't that many £1k punters floating around betting shops for you to target them in the 1st place.

Sideshow;
turn over 750k profit 15% making £113k. Fob profit £41k giving you £154k to play with.
Expenses;
SIS 19000
TURF 8000
COUPONS SLIPS 5000
GAMB COMM 1800
LICENCE 600
RENT 13000
RATES 3000
INSURANCE 600
LEVY 1000
FOB SHARE/RENT 8500
EPOS 4000
GAS/ELECTRIC/WATER 6000
BITS N BOBS 5000
BETTING TAX 23000 (INCL FOBS WHICH WILL COME SOON)
MAKING 115K
leaving you a profit of £39000.

Assuming you run it yourself (impossible but lets say you do) open at 9.30 till 9.30 7 days = 84 hours.

£39000 profit makes £750 per week at 84 hours means your earning £8.90 an hour and wont see daylight.

The form filling never ends, the gamb comm will talk to you like you are supplying heroin at the school gates, every night when its dark your waiting to be shot at/knifed/attacked .
The business will not get any busier it will only dwindle.

If you can get it for nowt and not tied in to any long rents, your only hope would be to get a few mugs on the phone (they are still out there) and just keep that under the counter.
You will find you can make an awfull more that way than the other way.

You will be taking over a business that turns well over a million pounds, gives you a constant headache, and makes you buttons.

OR

you could sit in the corner of a busy boozer/workin mens on a Sat or busy festval days and your expenses will be a pint and a pen and all you win is yours,

Taking on this shop will onlyline the pockets of everybody but yourself.

Oh I forgot another expense NEWSPAPERS £1600

Good Luck Either Way.

Good post Maine and shows without the Fobts a large chunk of shops would be closed overnight.

If you are capable of attracting these 1K punters, via a new start up business, you will need at least £500K to get going and would likely attract customers far more astute than you think. Firstly, it will be difficult to get them to bet with you. Secondly, as Maine Road points out, you will be always 'worrying' on a business that takes all your time, that I consider will do well to break even. (in your case, to an overly large investment)

Whilst I cant condone MR's suggestion to bet illegally - it is now the only way a one man operation can start up  -  even if you get caught, your fine would be only a minor percentage of what your first year costs would have been.

Some good posts here. The only future is big chains , high street , machines.

Have people not read bobs posts? i think its called not tapping the fish tank.

Bob i think its a great idea,you should borrow as much as you can and open up asap imo

I think the problem would be trying to do what everybody else is already doing.

I have often pondered the same thing.  Except online of course.  I have heard the same things, that the shrewdies would wipe you out.

My idea was to have the same betting limits as on course, as in country meetings bet to 1k liability, city 2k, metro saturday 4,000 or so.
But rather than trying to bet on everything, just target horses.  Bet on the main 2 meetings a day.  Could easily set up a system where you were tied in with BF, and the other bookies.  Really want BF though, as you could not only have live prices, but weighted average price, and an opinion on where the price will end up.
Could even set it up so the live price was displayed when somebody requested a bet, with say 5 seconds to confirm it.
If you are any good at reading markets on here, not hard to automate something to keep you out of trouble.  System is automated, so could easily have it running where it logs all your bets in a spreadsheet, and you could just offset them straight off on here at 5-10% better.  You would simply be arb trading on the reverse.

The biggest problems the big mobs have, is they try and bet on too much.  As such, they really have no idea on the prices they are putting up.  This makes arbing easy, which they hate.  They seem to have the system in place to know you are betting them when BF is under their price to know you are arbing, but rather than simply using that system to make sure their prices are never out of whack, they choose to ban instead.

If you did it right, you wouldn't have the arbers, as there would never be any arbs with you.  The more arbs you have available, the worse your pricing system is. 
The shrewdies, even if they did bet with you, are betting at a price 10% or so under what they could get with BF, so they would be the PC players who are getting better odds for themselves, and allowing you to make money off them to by simply offering them a service.

Don't go in too big, don't commit to a shop, and don't get too creative with trying to offer too much, and what is the worst that could happen?  You have a betting site that doesn't need to ban anybody, doesn't need to limit anybody, and makes decent money as well.

I mean on course bookies don't bet multis on every meeting going around.  They bet on the main races of the day, and the course they are at.  They aren't doing that and trying to be on which question the contestant on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire will go out on (if that is even still around), they are focusing their betting on something they can handle and keep a good track of.

Shrewdies are looking for mistakes. If you don't make any no business..if you do....

Like it or not 3 6 5 are the biggest. Turnover the most and get rid of the shrewdies asap.

With the money you would need to start up
you would need to be a shrewd judge, and
assuming you are, then go punting, on course.
Relatively speaking, the exes are low compared
to running a betting shop, and you would sleep
at night.

It isn't the 'shrewdies' who cause the biggest problems, it isn't the control of liabilities (usually).
It's the overheads.
SIS are conspiring with the big bookies. Duty - Tills AND Fobts - Licences; Gambling Commission (who are a waste of time and exist purely to provide themselves with a job and income) and council.
An average independent needs to make about £400 a day gross profit just to break even. On current margins and with machine duty this represents a take of well over £2,000.
Not easy.

My guess is the big firms only need to make about half the amount. They also take fewer risks and have the most aggressive marketing, so gain the most custom.

I'd say being an independent bookmaker is harder than it's ever been and big changes are needed to make things fairer or there won't be many left.

Every time the senior England football team has been trying to qualify for a major tournament - ie, the World Cup or Euros - since 1996, I've wondered what a bookie (online, to save rental costs, etc) laying only England tournament winner bets would win each time.

There are so many mug punters out there who are still misled and seduced by media hype and their own foolishness into believing England are good enough to beat the best in the world when it really matters. If anything, the two most recent positive results and performances at Wembley to clinch qualification for Brazil next summer will only have fuelled the hopeless believe of millions that Hodgson and his limited bunch of artisans really can pull it off in 2014.

England were very lucky to win the World Cup once, on home territory with the considerable help of a Russian linesman. The odds on them doing so again are realistically so much greater than the 18/1, 20/1 generally now available for Rio 2014.

I visualise a website - let's call it 'englandout.com' - with a huge cross of St. George banner stretching across the Home Page, tapping in to all that wasted national fervour in the build up to the tournament, with selected video soundbytes from Roy, Stevie G and the boys all saying "well, yes, of course we believe CAN do it" . . . and then just inviting every England punter to have a go at MUCH better prices than are generally available on the high street or online.

I'd go 30-1 (min) against England winning in the oppressive South American heat, and come up with other tempting prices for them to make the semi-finals too.

It has to be a winner.

Plechy - if you are so certain there is plenty of 22,23,24 etc available to lay. Yes, it ties a lot of money but money's not earning anything in the bank so 5% has got to be a good thing...........

Dont forget Greece won the European Championships.
Won 1 drew 1 lost 1 of the group stages, then sneaked 3
x 1 nil wins, while I agree people back England blind and are not very good its not impossible that they can win it.
You could always do a John Batten if they take the lead in the final.

racingguru
     20 Oct 13 09:09   

Plechy - if you are so certain there is plenty of 22,23,24 etc available to lay. Yes, it ties a lot of money but money's not earning anything in the bank so 5% has got to be a good thing........... 

..not if they are a genuine 25/1 chance.

Taylormade independant bookmakers from 1 shop to 25 shops in 6 years;
from 25 shops to zero shops in 1 year, sold about 5 closed the rest down.

Fairbet independant also went to the wall this week, owing plenty of people.

If you open one now it will be like trying to get on the titanic when every other fkr is jumpin off.

maineroad

A guy opened a few shops in my area in the north east, he even featured in the betview magazine as the best new independent, sadly 2 years later he's gone bust and Joes own the shops.

Ronnie

I've noticed a few independent shops that closed down, only to be opened up again by big firms,
so it shows that the expenses they pay are in no way an a par with an independants exes.
With all the advertising going on by the big boys it is impossible for an independent.
If you compare it to a butty shop, you could have your own selling real cut chicken of the bone for £2
next door to a Subway selling processed **** for £4 the Subway would be full, yours would be empty.


Very shortly when there are none left, there must be a market for just one that deals with drug dealers, and the like who deal in pots of
cash and want paying back in cash/euros/cheques they are happy to lose 10k to get 5k back legit.
The gamb comm would love that.

You will be a money launderer not a bookmaker but you wont be on a bike as they say.

maine road

I remember a couple of years ago a right dodge pot coming into the shop bangs 3k in the machine plays a couple of spins takes the ticket out and comes up to the counter with a ticket for 2,900, I said no problem sir I will be one minute, I went to the machine that he'd put the 3k in and pay him the 2,900 from his own money.

p.s. he didn't leave a tip

just on my break from another 13 hour shift this will be the 3rd this week. 3mill+ on the dole and cant get staff or should I say cant get good staff.

Ronnie
I dont think they want good staff, prefer someone who sits and stares into space and keeps the place tidy.

I had a load of chinese coming in sticking hundreds of scottish notes in the fobs playin a couple of times and collecting.
About the 4 th time they came in I pulled them to one side and said they could fill them with scottish notes and I would pay then in enlish providing they had a minimum of 10 spins of £100. They ended up putting fortunesin and getting half back.

Had another bloke who had a cash business i Southern Ireland he had thousands of euro's every couple of weeks. I let him back in euros but would pay him in £s he lost fortunes trying to turn it into £s.
I ended up with thousands and thousands in euros I was busier than Thomas cooks foreign exchange.

Had another bloke who worked for a meat firm and backed o the phone, when he lost he paid in legs of lamb that me dodgy uncle used to sell in all the boozers on a Sunday afternoon.

Happy days.!!!

You want to know something weird?
The Chinese customers in my shop never play the machines!!!

These chinese only came in to change money in the fobs.
They would stick a few bob on the football usaully 3 certs to try and get some sterling back.