I suspect the bookies already know which shops they are going to close – they have high traffic and low traffic areas. I strongly suspect the option of playing 20p spins on slots will disappear or reduce drastically as they won’t want there machines being taken up by minnows when there are no longer whales to catch to make up for it.
Whatever happens this can only be good news for the town centres. Many people don’t actually want to gamble online, and the money they might have pumped into the bookies might actually find its way into other stores.
I don’t think anyone will mourn the loss of bookies from the streets of our towns. My main issue with them is that online you can ban yourself from every casino with one tool. The bookies could have done this with a simple membership card scheme, but their greed got the better of them.
They will still make a lot of money, as is evidenced by the poster who lost £700, but the days of guys going in and losing £5k at a time are almost over.
Happily we are approaching the days where 2 gold pots could wipe out there days profits 🙂
