'We need to futurise betting for a younger audience but keep that good old betting shop banter'

When you have been crowned Betting Shop Manager of the Year for your skills as a people person, someone who makes their customers welcome and wanting to return, the vast array of technology on display at ICE at ExCel, London, Europe's biggest betting and gaming show, might seem daunting, almost threatening to your role.

Not to Stacey Carnell, since November the holder of the title, who runs two Ladbrokes shops in Hoyland, near Barnsley, South Yorkshire, and who totally understands why betting shops need to move forward with all the latest tech available if they are to compete in the entertainment marketplace while still catering for their established customer base.

"We need to futurise betting in order to attract a younger demographic, but at the same time the older generation just wants that good old betting shop experience: banter, without the bells and whistles.

"Everything is about technology now for younger customers, who head straight for the SSBTs [self-service betting terminals]," Carnell says. "For them, it's like online betting but in a shop, and with more bets available on more markets than we take over the counter and with the information displayed in every language."

Trying out the state-of-the-art digital Racing Post Betting Shop Display screens that are already live in five per cent of the shops across Britain and Ireland, Carnell says: "We could do with them in my shops, which carry the paper Betting Shop Displays at the moment. 

"There's just not enough wallspace to put up all the pages so we prioritise British and Irish racing and then put up the international racecards when the afternoon racing is over. We don't have enough space to display all the form so the digital version would mean you can bring up the form with a touch of your fingertips.

"Older customers would be fine with that. When SSBTs came in we would be out in the shop demonstrating them and this would be the same. As we get only one Racing Post newspaper per shop this is like having a complete Racing Post on the wall."

Trying to balance futurising betting while still providing everything a betting shop is meant to offer, such as personal service and sociability, a chance for people to meet other people, is dear to Carnell's heart.

"For our older customers, it's about human contact. They might be widowed, might be living by themselves, so the staff and the other customers in their local betting shop might be the only people they talk to all day; no machine is ever going to replace that.

"For me, it's very much a social place to be. A betting shop is a social hub on every high street and managing one is like running a pub . . . but without the drunks!"

Carnell was attending ICE as part of her year as titleholder, in which she and her team have already been guests at Ascot of SiS - co-backers with the Racing Post of the Betting Shop Manager of the Year competition - as well as to Lingfield, along with other Entain managers representing the company's Ladbrokes and Coral brands who reached the later stages of the competition. A trip to Hong Kong for Carnell and her husband, Gary, is lined up for April.

Stacey Carnell with her Betting Shop Manager Of the Year awardCredit: Edward Whitaker

Just a short stroll across the vast ExCel arena from where Carnell was sharing her views at Spotlight Sports Group's Racing Post cafe, Andrew Rhodes, the Gambling Commission CEO, was delivering a keynote speech in ICE's Consumer Protection Zone, with a theme of "striking the right balance" in gambling regulation. He could certainly have learned something from Carnell, who dispenses the sort of sound, practical sense that is born from working on the front line and having to meet the stringent requirements around controversial affordability checks on a daily basis. 

"When affordability checks first came out they were very scripted and felt very forced, very uncomfortable, as people's finances are a very touchy subject for anybody," she says. "Now we've got used to them, we're trying to get to know the customer from the minute they come into the shop. By the time they want to place a big bet we already know a lot about them so we don't have to ask such intrusive questions. 

"Having that human interaction you find out more about your customers, about their lives, their work, the patterns of their betting and staking. It's all about  playing the long game, a gradual process of getting to know your customers.

If affordability checks are ever to be frictionless, then following Carnell's lead should probably be part of the playbook and her optimism for the future of betting shops is infectious.

"Some people might be worried that the betting industry is under threat but, as you can see from all the huge displays at ICE, gambling is not dying out and the high street betting shop experience will change to meet the needs of the next generation."

Read next:

David Redvers: affordability checks could have 'catastrophic' impact on British racing's international standing 

Affordability checks: what your MP needs to know ahead of the big debate on February 26

'Please, please, carefully consider the damage you are going to do to the racing industry' - Middleham's plea to Rishi Sunak 

The Front Runner is our unmissable email newsletter available exclusively to Members' Club Ultimate subscribers. Chris Cook, the reigning Racing Writer of the Year, provides his take on the day's biggest stories and tips for the upcoming racing every morning from Monday to Friday. Not a Members' Club Ultimate subscriber? Click here to join today and also receive our Ultimate Daily emails plus our full range of fantastic website and newspaper content.