A Look Inside UK Bookmakers Shop 1960's Roll Back The Years

Looks like a scene from'The Sting'

You need to be knocking on a bit to remember the 60's?

We know how betting shops looked in 1971 because of

Get Carter
Carry On At Your Convenience

I know of no films that had bookie scenes in 60s

Ticker tape, hadn't seen that before, wonder if there were commentaries, thanks sparrow.

We had audio commentaries in most shops at that time.

Scobie Breasley on sprinters. I always found it strange they were never raided because it wasn't hidden and it was cash

Rigsby 04 Oct 24 17:17 
Scobie Breasley on sprinters. I always found it strange they were never raided because it wasn't hidden and it was cash


Raided for what reason?

Ah my mistake I thought you meant raided by the police

Presume Rigsby means robbed, plenty robbed over the years.

What was on the tape sparrow, just the results or the shows as well?

stewarts rise 04 Oct 24 17:33
What was on the tape sparrow, just the results or the shows as well?


I think just the results but I might be wrong.

I remember in London some of the spielers before legality in 1961 had relied on the ticker tape.

The commentary came over the blower.
I think the only pictures at the time were on terrestial TV.
SIS started in the 80s when all meetings were televised, maybe 1985

Thanks sparrow don't think i went into a bookies until i was 18, was managing one about 6 months later.

I seem to remember George Cole (arfur Daley) backing a horse in a St trinians film.

That would be 50s,but,did it show him placing bet?

Commentary was from Extel and they always mentioned the favourite to keep punters interested.
Think it was Radio 2 that gave out racing result upadtes every hour and seem to recall guys in the boozer huddled around a portable radio lidtening to the evening racing results around 10 o' clock.

different times

Any bookie caught with a TV on the premises faced losing the licence and definitely one in view showing the BBC coverage to punters!!

Blacked out windows.
Opened at 10am closed 15 mins after last race had finished.
No singles bets on the football coupon,think it was a min 3 selections

It was Reg Butlers dad Rab, the then home secretary who legislated the betting and gaming act in 1960, Butler insisted that Betting offices should have "dead windows" with no visible enticements to prospective punters. Butler said in his memoirs that "the house of commons was so intent on making LBOs as sad as possible, in order not to deprave the young, that they ended up more like undertakers premises".

A better film of the 60s here.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=814240522538108

the punters  alllooking  up at that extel blower box on the wall when a race was in progress in the 70s bookies did they think they would see the race if they looked at the speaker !

No singles bets on the football coupon,think it was a min 3 selections

minimum 3 aways and minimum 5 homes.

The old boy saying he got information from Fred Winters brother Charlie, and could remember his winning bets from the 1920s, good film sparrow.

Foyles, remember that, punters all looking at the speakers, then commenting on as to how the fav got blocked in etc... Hilarious to think of it now
Some independents would take singles on the football from the coupon prices in the early 80s
I also remember cashing out a treble on the horses after the first 2 had won... Bookie didn't want to take a chance on the 3rd one winning, and I was happy to take it and have a smaller single on the 3rd one

And those plastic strip things that used to hand in the door space to block out passers by looking in... Losing punters used to yank them down on the way out

Happy days

Pencils on a piece of string.

The bookies at Ambleside,Lake District.

Had pencils and cut up small pieces of paper,no carbon,no copy of bet.
You just got a till receipt with the amount on,like you do in a shop.

Was there one bank holiday 14 meetings,couldn’t remember what I’d backed,has didn’t have a copy.

Homeing pigeon brought the results ,

reg those plastic different coloured ribbon things on the door was only young at the time me an my mate knotted 2 together at the bottom in our local meccas bloke came storming in from the pub next door an nearly throttled himself on it dragged it right off the door !

Half decent read for nostalgia buffs

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/racing/our-national-love-affair-a-history-of-the-betting-shop-804966.html

My first bookie was an independent (2 shops) in Aberystwyth  in 1971..boardman (everybody's mate) extel commentary and Paul Haigh was the settler in the backroom. Can't remember the name of the bookie!!

Noh and kyogen are the oldest form of Japanese threatre,

Oooh larrry Larry Larry,they fawned.

Yet still they couldn’t find a better one than deep impact.

All hopes are now on shin emperor,

jussed spotted tobymugs..