The top 10 irritations from betting shops

You could change the word shops to forums and you'd still easily make 10 , albeit slightly different but equally annoying 

one off customers who come in wanting you to put prices on slips when there's a screen with them on

Those that move the head and body sideways as it’s running to the line

those who's nag is out the back , then wish yours would fall ..  complete tw4t5

Those who'd chance asking for a small loan until next time.

Staff who have no interest in taking bets and dont care a hoot if you get on. Punters who hog the tills while asking for early prices on their 10x 5p lucky 15s.

The ones who bring their lunch with them and especially the shops that have microwaves just to facilitate this.

Saw a guy bring in a Tesco spaghetti meal and asking for it to heated up.

Stunk the place right out.

The guy who treats the shop Racing Post as his own and/or spends ages reading the form which is stuck up on the wall when you just want to have a quick skim of the articles.

People who pop into the shop once in a blue moon & pick on the regulars because of their habits!

Barrow likes to be amongst losers.

The **** who always throws the pen he used to write out a loser, in the bin.
The **** who would take a wad of betting slips [carbon copy days] and writes on the top one using the rest as a pad, and therein rendering the ones below useless.
The **** who takes it out on the person who took his last losing bet , uttering those immortal words, "I never win when you're in the shop" WABOC's they are
The **** who says "the price has changed this split second"
The **** who was banned but still writes his own bets out and sends his mate from the pub in to place his bets for him.
The **** who waits until the bitter end without having a bet and says "see you tomorrow" -that's how staff get 'punter fatigue'
The **** who has a big win and says "I'll buy you a pint if I see you out and about" -never to be seen again /tight ****
The **** who asks for the key to the toilet, leaves the pan like a bomb site and leaves the shop like nowt has occurred
The annoying **** who says "If my wife comes in looking for me tell her you haven't seen me all day"- then you tell her he's in the boozer next door
The **** who says "can you strap me a score bet, I wont let you down" -never to be seen again -Ronnie Rails will know them well

Some great characters though. Remember a guy who used to eat betting sips as though he was eating sweets

Leif.
I can assure you this is true i knew a Coral manager who give a guy a 600 strap bet the horse lost did you think the manager saw the guy again.
Hope you are well.
Ronnie.

Betting Shop Characters covered this and more back in the day...
Think it was a Chit Chat thread but been recovered on here in the last few years


Got to be in the top 3 ever threads

https://community.betfair.com/chit_chat/go/thread/view/94038/23528430/betting-shop-characters-reprinted-by-request


that was a great thread

1. Working class snobs who come in with their posh shopping bags and look down their nose at ordinary punters.

A manager back in the late 90's Ronnie strapped a business guy a monkey [guy ran a carpet business].
Bloke had been punting heavily for a while. Said he'd be back in 5 minutes [was just popping over to the bank opposite the shop]
Hoss lost, bloke never returned.

Next day[unluckily] area manager turns up and does a float check[manager hadn't or was unable to cover the shortfall]
sacked obviously.
carpet man was in papers a few months later having gone under [took the shop manager with him]
next time I bumped into the aformentioned manager he was working in Ikea

The old man / retiree cliques can be most daunting especially if you don’t know anyone.

They like to make lame jokes too like they look at your bet and go - he’s backing the McManus horse…what do you know about JP lol haha giggle giggle

The near miss stories get on my t1ts. It’s always the same blokes too. Boring as feck!

once saw an old chap on a mobility scooter get stuck in the doorway of a william hills, that wasn't funny but the west indian chap climbing over him to get to the slips before he missed the off on a dog race was

This post similar to Manoleeds earlier.
Before moving house frequented a Laddies in Oldham. Every morning without fail, the moment the doors opened, an elderly lady would shuffle in, snatch the shop Racing Post, sit down, and for the next hour or more would proceed to write out umpteen dog bets. Nobody had a hope in hell of getting that paper until she had finished and I am told it caused numerous upsets.

There was always a **** who thought he had it by the bowlocks by covering every race on a bank holiday/or a saturday by placing a wad full of betting slips [enough to choke a small hippo to death] that was comprised of 2p, 3p [or if he was flush, 5p] each way patents
bearing in mind these were settled manually.

pr*** would come in some time later [oftentimes several weeks later] clutching his wad of slips to collect his thirty bob 'winnings'.
that 'serial killer' smirk on his chops when he says 'you've missed a non-runner' when he knows you'll be trawling through a mass of sporting life results sheets never leaves you

no matter where you stand at the side of a shop some cnt will always want to see the form on the wall behind you.

that's Valparaíso Chile, it finished 4 hours ago.

Yeah, i just wanted to see something, can you move out the way.

that's Golden Gate Fields, they're not betting on it in here. 

Yeah, i just wanted to see something, can you move out the way.

that's last weeks TV listings, they've put them up by mistake.

Yeah, i just wanted to see something, can you move out the way.

In 10 years time, there will be no such thing as a betting shop.

dunno about 10 years time but stand alone betting shops will be dying/dead on their arse IMO.
sore subject but my belief is the game will only survive under a Tote type system.
wouldn't want a bookie running it and how it works alongside an exchange [if at all] is hard to predict or fathom.

for many a year [and only reason they prevail] bookies on the high street are only extant because of crack style machines.

how the f+(8 the game is made appealing to thi and following generations is a puzzle.

that's Golden Gate Fields, they're not betting on it in here.

Yeah, i just wanted to see something, can you move out the way.


no matter where you stand at the side of a shop some cnt will always want to see the form on the wall behind you.

that's Valparaíso Chile, it finished 4 hours ago.

Yeah, i just wanted to see something, can you move out the way.


stick the nut on em imo

when the virtual racing was introduced, punters gave up studying form and embraced the joy of pin-sticking.
dumbed down overnight.

nothing virtual about a winner

that ^^ is the kind of fkng nonsense they should be cracking down on, not pensioners wanting £5 on a real 9/4 shot

I managed shops in an area where a 'traveller' would bet £50/100/200 on a virtual fav. couldn't write a bet out himself but would pull out plastic wrapped money folds issued by his bank and ask someone to write it out.
fast forward a few years and he would be pumping it into the machines for denise.

1 the guy who always has ahot tip directly from the stable,never ever win of course
2 t
he guy who screams a winner home at top of his voice,then tells you he had 1.50 ew on it
3 the guy who thinks he is hilarious
4the guy who thinks every horse he backs has been pulled by bent jockeys and trainers

learnt that early on bellico as a relief shop manager
these c**** were universally imbued with the same inanity
they were oblivious to it though

Top one is the selfish bully who rips the post off the wall to use all himself all afternoon

The boring, attention seeking, half-wit wearing the t-shirt that says "Tanker drivers get filled-up from behind".

Knows nothing about everything - but still wants to broadcast his "opinion" on everything.

From the other side of the counter (early 2000s)...
1 Aggressive behaviour/threats towards staff or other punters.
2 The one who for some reason won't use the gents, and leaves piss all over the seat in the ladies/disabled.
3 Writing up deliberately ambiguous slips. 5s that could be 6s was a favourite back then.
4 Chewing the end of the pens.
5 Consistently rushing up to the counter with hare running.
6 A pile of low-stake lucky 63 slips all with early prices. Usually on a busy saturday morning.
7 Casually dropping losing slips all over the floor without even at least aiming for the bin.
8 Rocking up with a pile of football coupons at 2:58pm on a saturday.
9 Such heavy losers that you're told to let them take higher prices.
10 Queuing up at the payout window as their horse crosses the line in The National.

James.
All that still goes on today nothing changes in  the betting  shop world.
Hope you are well.
Ronnie.

Punters chewing the ends of the pens really winds me up.

Who wants to stick a pen in his ear when someone's been chewing it?

Used to be harder to do when the pen or pencil was on a piece of string attached to the wall

Every shop used to have a "bok"
As soon as you realised they were on the same horse as you, you could safely throw your ticket in the bin

The aul lad who would say after a race 'sure it was a certainty' then would reply no when you asked if he backed it.

The Management 28 Jan 24 13:57 
The boring, attention seeking, half-wit wearing the t-shirt that says "Tanker drivers get filled-up from behind".

Knows nothing about everything - but still wants to broadcast his "opinion" on everything.

Harsh ffs

The ball sack accusing the 80 year old for fudging his winnings

The smack heads that come in for a warm and a coffee

Zealot.
And leave the needles in the toilet.
Hope you are well.
Ronnie.

ha ha yeah - great thanks mate , you ok ?