Following a quiet period for the Association of British Bookmakers (ABB) on Central Lobby, two items suddenly appeared one after the other on essentially the same subject - the Safe Bet Alliance.
In the first of these pieces, statistics displaying the levels of crime reported by different sectors, including betting shops, apparently showed how crime-free the modern betting shop now is, compared to pubs and convenience stores. This was followed by the new CEO of the ABB, Paul Darling, proudly claiming that "betting shops have the lowest levels of crime of all retail sectors on the high street". There may have been a change in leadership at the ABB, but that hasn’t brought any improvement on the spin or their credibility.
The facts are that nearly half of the Freedom of Information (FOI) requests submitted to the Police by the ABB were not responded to and the areas covered by those that did respond is unclear, which significantly distorts any comparison.
Fighting an objection by Newham Council last year, Paddy Power went to great lengths to discount the Council’s evidence of crime around betting shops and successfully showed that information from Police can very often be based on “landmark” reporting, rather than crime specific to a particular venue. This is particularly relevant to pubs and convenience stores. Without all of the FOI results, it is spurious for the ABB to claim that betting shops have the lowest levels of crime reporting.
What is concerning however, is the data collected by the Gambling Commission. Last year it reported that
8,599 crimes were reported from betting shops, requiring Police assistance on the premises. These are direct calls to the Police from shop staff and are recorded by the Gambling Commission as part of regulatory returns collected from all operators, not through FOIs.
The worrying aspect is that the majority of these calls will be FOBT related, whether that is
criminal damage directed at the machinesor
intimidation and threats toward shop staff after a customer has incurred big losses. All of these are everyday occurrences in the modern betting shop. However, mounting evidence shows that a culture of non-reporting of crime has been engendered across the big operators, which begs the question:
just how big is the problem of crime in betting shops?
In 2012 an
undercover Panorama investigation revealed 26 incidents of violence and criminal damage out of 37 betting shopsthey filmed in.
There are
49,433 pubs in the UK. So with several times the number of pubs, square footage, number of visits, longer visit times and the sale of alcohol on the premises, it is logical that a much higher overall crime rate will be experienced in pubs than in betting shops. But the ABB stats show this as only nine times higher. The reason again is clear, crime levels in betting shops are disproportionately higher than in pubs.
Gareth Thomas MP, who attended the launch of Safe Bet Alliance 2014, might have his heart in the right place but he isn’t listening to his fellow Labour MPs, like
Chris Evans MP who has been campaigning for an end to the one thing that puts betting shop staff at most risk – single staffing. ABB hostility to the original idea of a Safe Bet Alliance – as publicised by our Campaign last year – was clearly noted in this letter
written by former Cabinet Minister Ian McCartney in 2008 calling for an end to violence in betting shops. What we see today is very much a watered down version of what was originally wanted from the Safe Bet Alliance, especially by the shop workers it was aimed at helping.
Since our
Campaignstarted writing on Central Lobby, each time the ABB published an article the
Campaignhas been able to respond pointing out the ABB flaws. Despite the ABB deciding to go quiet, the
Campaignhas continued releasing items revealing evidence to support our position that the maximum stake per spin on FOBTs should be reduced from £100 to £2. The ABB has not offered any response to these evidence items.
In a
letterto Mr. Darling we urged that a new approach was required at the ABB and provided insight into poor judgement and actions. It looks like the advice was ignored.