William Hill UK Closing Shops

A recent Parliment decision to limit Punters to £2 on fixed-odds terminals has forced William Hill to close about 700 shops with layoffs in excess of 4000 Employees. Previously the Punter could wager £100 maximum. Details here.

Regards
98Clubs

Quote: 98Clubs

A recent Parliment decision to limit Punters to £2 on fixed-odds terminals has forced William Hill to close about 700 shops with layoffs in excess of 4000 Employees. Previously the Punter could wager £100 maximum. Details here.

Regards
98Clubs

I have a family member who works for a competitor betting shop. Business is bad for that chain too.

How big of a social problem is sports betting in the UK?

I've spoken to a couple Ozzies who told me it is considered a fairly major problem there. Dad punting the family's money and so forth.

2¥ is such a bad look.

Quote: Rigondeaux

How big of a social problem is sports betting in the UK?...

In casinos the limit for playing is £5 with a spin every 2.5 seconds, max prize £20k. The issue started when the rules were relaxed a few years ago so that in bookmakers, players could walk in off the street and gamble up to £100. Typically this was on games such a roulette rather than fruit machines, but led to many more stories of people losing thousands. There has always been some problem gambling, but this particular issue has been growing with some newspapers etc. canvassing for tighter rules. Many high-street shops survive on this income, so it's just reversing the trend when they jumped on the bandwagon.

I'm looking forward to seeing what exclusive games the bookies start offering on the FOBT's to try to keep the punters excited with the smaller stakes. With a £2 max bet and a £500 max payout one of the solutions available to them is to have more progressive jackpots.

There are strict rules, so while £500 can still be won you can only wager £2 per spin. Progressives for more can only be in casinos. There are a few fruit machine only “casinos” with their 20 machines.

The £500 max allows for progressives that can become EV+, usually at lower stakes than £2. There is one game in particular that is EV+ on 50p stakes once the jackpot reaches £280. Roughly one in 40 machines I'v explored have it at higher than that.

As a solution to the reduced stake limits I expect the casinos will either have more progressives, or more 'premium play' features, hopefully the former.