How starting shot on gambling spawned a multi-billion pound industry

In firing the starting gun on betting shops, Harold Macmillian’s government unleashed a genie which has never been tamed.  

Announced 64 years ago today, the Betting and Gaming Act gave the green light to bookmakers to open their doors the following year.  

Aimed at brushing away archaic laws on gambling, the landmark reforms allowed bookies and casinos to take wagers over the counter. 

Within months, street runners ferrying bets and cash were consigned to history and thousands of establishments were doing a brisk trade. 

Skip forward to the iPhone era, and the UK industry is a multi-billion pound trade operating across numerous platforms, sports and subjects. 

South American Esports or live virtual football at Ladbrokes’ Champions Stadium certainly weren’t in the policymakers’ sights.

Gambling expert Professor Leighton Vaughan Williams highlighted some of the changes since a time when Elvis topped the charts and a loaf of bread cost 6p. 

‘In 1960, most gambling was illegal street betting with what was known as “bookies’ runners” who would place the bet on behalf of the punter,’ he says.  

‘The government was getting nothing out of it, and following the first betting shops opening in 1961, the government introduced taxes five years later.  

‘Major changes in the following years included satellite television in 80s, the advent of the internet in the late 90s and then mobile and smartphone technology. 

‘The launch of the National Lottery in 1994 was also a big moment that changed the perception of gambling, with people aged 16 able to go and buy a ticket.’ 

Before the reforms were set out on September 1, 1960, rules around gambling were arcane and muddled, with the wealthy able to exploit loopholes.  

Anyone wanting to bet on horse racing or another sport had to show they had enough credit to set up an account with a bookmaker and do their dealings over the phone.  

An explosion in the number of bookmakers followed after Macmillian’s Conservative government set out the changes which allowed the first shops to open on May 1, 1961.  

In the first months, bookies sprung up at a rate of 100 a week.  

In the six months after the law changed, there were 10,000 in existence, with around 1,000 casinos in the first five years.  

The first betting shops were austere places with the law forbidding the type of trappings that in the current day encourage players to hang around.  

Gamblers chose from stakes on blackboards and passed a telegram-type slip to the cashier. The changes came in time for the 1961 Epsom Derby, which was won by Roger Poincelet’s 66/1 outsider Psidium. 

A BBC reporter who visited a London bookmaker on the opening day likened the experience to ‘being in a small Post Office’.  

‘Before the 80s, betting shop windows would have to be frosted so people couldn’t see in and inside there were no carpets and no coffee — anything to stop punters hanging around,’ Prof Williams says.  

‘Now, it’s more a mainstream, leisure activity rather than something tawdry where the punters hide in a cloth cap and had to look over their shoulders.’

Sir Dingwall Latham Bateson, the then chairman of the Racecourse Betting Control Board told the BBC at the time that he didn’t think opening betting shops would lead to an increase in gambling.

‘I would think that the betting shops would absorb legally what has hitherto been done illegally,’ he says.  

The presumption was tested not just by the boom in over-the-counter wagers but by organised criminals attracted to riches and fame.

In the year of the government’s announcement, the Krays opened up a gambling club named Esmerelda’s Barn in London’s West End, where the notorious twins hosted many celebrities of the day.  

Successive governments have reformed the industry, including through Gordon Brown scrapping betting duty in the 2001 Budget. 

However the sheer growth of the industry, accelerated via new technology, has been the biggest shift from what the policymakers of the day envisaged.

Revenues in the betting and gaming sector reached £15.1 billion in the year to March 2023, according to figures from the Gambling Commission.  

Professor Williams, of Nottingham Business School, views the myriad of bets available — taking in global sports, TV reality shows and virtual sports — as another sign of a wheel that keeps spinning faster.

‘In 1960 it would have been horse racing and dogs, now football is a very big spinner and the US presidential election is a whole story on its own, with huge bets being placed online,’ he says.

‘There is in-play betting and betting exchanges are another big change.  

‘In 2005 there was a push to open up big casinos but this was stymied because of concerns about people going to bet in the venues.  

‘Now anyone with an iPhone has a casino in their pocket. It’s a whole new ballgame compared to what anyone could have imagined in 1960.’ 

Campaign groups have highlighted the harms around gambling, including addiction, which have ruined lives and been linked with financial ruin and, in extreme cases, suicide. According to GambleAware, one in four people think they know someone who has experienced problems with the activity.  

Earlier this year, the charity published research showing that an estimated 1.65 million children and teenagers are growing up in households where an adult has an unhealthy relationship with gambling.  

Stigma, excessive gambling advertising and accessibility were cited as barriers preventing people from reaching out for help.  

According to the research by Rishi Sunak’s government, ‘there are too many cases of addiction, catastrophic financial loss’ and suicide.  

One player was found to have been allowed to lose £70,000 over a 10-hour period, while another was allowed to place an immediate £100,000 bet, even though he had a £70,000 credit limit.  

Mr Sunak’s government drew up a white paper which is intended to address many of the issues around gambling. The proposed reforms have been left in the balance after Labour took power, with the party’s manifesto having promised to ‘strengthen protections for those at risk’.

The Gambling Commission is working to make the activity safer, including through clamping down on online slot products, increased online verification, banning gambling on credit cards and making operators take part in a national online self-exclusion scheme.    

A spokesperson told Metro.co.uk: ‘We take tough action against operators who fail to follow our rules and in the last two-and-a-half years we have taken action against 38 gambling businesses who paid £74 million for failing to follow our rules.’ 

‘The white paper has got it about right, it’s bringing the gambling industry onboard rather than creating an artificial fist-fight,’ Prof Williams says.  

‘It sets limits on stake sizes online, not just in brick-and-mortar establishments, and introduces affordability checks on anyone who bets more than a given amount in a given period.

‘The end of gambling sponsorship on the front of football shirts has already been voluntarily agreed.

‘The recommendations will go a long way to addressing the changes we have seen since the last Gambling Act in 2005.’ 

While the digital era has revolutionised the industry, the human instincts driving people to their smartphones or shop counters remain the same, according to Prof Williams.  

‘Gambling goes back as far as you look in history,’ he says. 

‘When they excavated Shakespeare’s home in Stratford a die was among the finds. What’s changed is the way in which people can gamble and the opportunities they have to do so. But the psychology hasn’t changed.  

‘Some people will play professionally while others know in the long run they will loose; it’s escapism, leisure and fun.

‘For some it goes too far and there are measures in place, or being put in place, to address those issues.  

‘The slogan which has had an effect is ‘when the fun stops, stop’, and this has remained the same throughout the years.’ 

MORE : Gamblers at the Ritz Club owed £780,000 after casino shut in lockdown

MORE : More than 2,000 attempts to access gambling sites at Department of Health

MORE : ‘I turned my life around after losing friends to my £2,000-a-night gambling’