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William Hill to cease physical operations of stores
brain_higgy
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http://www.scotsman.com/business/media-tech-leisure/william-hill-to-close-more-than-100-shops-1-3388298
more stores to shut down and become online only business
more stores to shut down and become online only business
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It's 100 shops closing but they have 2,300 betting shops so there'll be plenty left
they're blaming Osborne's budget tax hike on fruit machines (FOBTs) in betting shops........
Do you ever have a flutter?
There are a few events that I place a bet on every year...
The smoking ban hasn't helped.I'm surprised it's not all gone over to online now.
Maybe it's the 'social' element old school guys keeping the shops open.
Why should smoking be allowed in betting shops?
Eh?.
So shutting 100 and leaving 2300 is becoming an online business
Was I speaking Japanese? You said the Smoking Ban hadn't helped. As if to say we should keep it so punters will carry on betting in shops.
Must've been lost in translation.;-)
No,not at all.I used to hate going into the bookies when you were allowed to smoke in them.The smoke was so thick my eyes were stinging within 5 minutes.I couldn't wait to get out.
Now you see all the punters standing outside coughing their lungs up in the pouring rain and cold.Wishing they were at home.More and more are doing that these days.But old habits die hard.
In my local shopping centre we have a William Hill, BetFred and a Ladbrokes, all virtually next to each other. There are hardly ever any customers in any of them but none of them will close as they don't want to be seen as a failure compared to the other two. Even with income from the fruit machines the shops must be making a loss.
I think you would be surprised if you sat in one for a day and counted what went over the counter. People who don't gamble or only do so one or twice a year tend to think of bets being a couple of pounds maybe up to a tenner. Wait untill you see people putting down 500/1000/2000 on a single bet and sitting in there all day repeating the process till you make comments about them not being profitable
that's quite worrying really.
However since these gaming machines have arrived, many of the traditional punters either just place there bets and go or like myself bet online listening to the in shop radio service.
The problem is these machines create a lot of noise from both the machine and the usual foul mouthed losing punter; added to that the aggression and violent behaviour of some of these punters does not make for a pleasant atmosphere.
But how many jobs that were done by people in 1984 are now handled by computers? Unemployment was I think significantly higher in 1984 than it is two decades later, It's the jobs people are doing have changed. I suspect the same will hold true over the next two decades
The idea that technology will create mass unemployment is not exactly new. Of course the legislation against it's opposition might need updating Destruction of Stocking Frames, etc. Act 1812