Why betting shops aren't dead

Pete Lowndes-Burt, Managing Director at Sports Alive, looks at why betting shops deserve investment as the retail estate shrinks.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham's plan to give councils greater powers to refuse new betting shops has put the retail estate back into the political debate.

The proposal would give local authorities more control over new openings. It comes after more than a decade of decline in the number of betting shops across Great Britain. The Gambling Commission recorded 5,825 betting premises in Great Britain in 2024/25, down 1.8 percent on the previous year.

Non-remote betting generated £2.5 billion in gross gambling yield during the year, up 0.7 percent. The Commission’s quarterly operator data also shows how betting inside those shops is changing.

What is interesting to me is where the money is moving inside the shop. 

Over-the-counter GGY fell 18 percent year-on-year between January and March, to £125 million. SSBT use went the other way. Bets placed through terminals rose 6 percent to 42.9 million during the quarter, while GGY edged up to £126 million.

These quarterly figures only cover the largest betting operators, so I wouldn’t treat them as a picture of the whole market. They are useful because they show what customers are doing within that group. The Commission’s annual industry figures are a different dataset.

The estate is getting smaller. Inside the shops that remain, the way customers use the space is changing too.

Why the in-person betting shop still matters

If a customer wants to put £10 on the next race, they can walk into a shop and place it at the counter or on an SSBT there and then. They don't have to remember a password, wait for an app to update or work out where to find the market. If they use the terminal, the bigger screen gives them more room to research the race and look through the markets before they bet. Once the bet is on, they can stay and watch the race with everyone else.

Of course, a phone is convenient. You can place the same bet without leaving the sofa. The shop has to give people value worth leaving the sofa for.

I have been in plenty of busy shops when a big race is about to go off. Prices are moving, everyone is watching the same finish, and you hear the reaction across the room. You do not get quite the same thing sitting on your own with a phone.

That sense of community matters too. Regulars get to know the staff and the other people in the shop. You see the same faces, watch the same racing and have a bit of a chat while you are there. After a while, seeing the same people is one of the reasons you go back.

There is also someone to ask. If a customer is unsure about a market, they can speak to somebody standing four feet away and get an answer before the race starts. 

Operators can publish all the information they like online. The value in the shop comes from having someone there when customers need them.

For me, this is one of the things the shop still has to offer. If somebody has made the effort to walk through the door, there has to be a reason to stay.

Where the money is still going

Investment is still going into retail, including venues that did not offer sports betting until recently.

Changes that came into force in July 2025 allowed converted casino premises in England and Wales to offer betting, subject to the right licences. Rank has already started putting that change into practice. Its latest results show sports betting terminals in 24 venues, alongside a sports betting lounge in Leicester and sports viewing and betting facilities at Reading South. For those venues, this is a new part of the floor, and it has to be built properly.

Before a customer places a bet, somebody has already had to think about the screens, the content they carry and how everything is scheduled throughout the day. That is where in-venue sports betting content and display management comes in. If it is working properly, the customer should not have to think about any of it.

I can see the same thing in our own business. The number of screens and SSBTs we manage has grown over the past year as operators convert more of their retail space to digital.

Our job is to keep the content customers see in the shop current throughout the day. That includes the marketing and promotions across the screens and around the SSBTs. If that content is left sitting there out of date, the technology is not doing its job.

The money is still going into the venues operators expect people to use.

What the closure headlines miss

Betfred's proposal to close 132 shops is bound to get attention. Closure numbers always do.

Earlier this year, Betfred expanded its technology partnership with Sportradar to upgrade the retail platform across 1,300 shops. That is a sizeable commitment to its retail estate.

Entain has been investing too. In 2025, it completed the rollout of Group BetStation across more than 2,400 Ladbrokes and Coral shops in the UK and Ireland, converting 12,000 betting terminals.

That is the bit I think gets lost in the closure headlines. Investment is continuing across the shops that remain.

What this means for the estate

The betting shop estate has already changed a lot, and operators are still deciding where to invest.

The quarterly figures give us a better idea of how customers are using the shop now. In that latest quarter, SSBT use rose while over-the-counter GGY fell. That makes the shop floor matter more. Customers need to find what they want quickly. The screens around them have to earn their place.

I don't think anyone can look at the closure numbers and pretend retail has an easy few years ahead.

Some shops will disappear. The estate is already much smaller than it was 15 years ago. Customers are still walking through the doors of the shops that remain. What matters now is what operators do with them.

For me, that is the point. If a shop is worth keeping open, it is worth giving people a reason to use it.

About Sports Alive

Sports Alive, part of Digital Screen Services, has supported independent betting shop operators for 25 years through retail marketing, digital signage and in-shop promotional content. Sports Alive works with operators across the UK betting sector, providing services including digital posters, SSBT content, screen bank management, gaming machine attracts and point-of-sale materials.