Betting shops still offer a safer - and drier - haven for punters to get together

I dropped into a betting shop last week to get out of the rain and I was shocked. To be clear, I was shocked at myself for not having been inside a betting shop for more than a month since I'd changed a route that used to bring me along a street with three, usually busy, nearly adjacent shops in my local area in south London.

Most of my betting these days is conducted through mobile apps, but I do still like to give the moths in my wallet a bit of an airing while I fish out a dusty fiver or tenner, exchange a few words with fellow punters as we scrutinise the Racing Post on the betting shop wall and pit our wits against the gods of fortune.

Call it nostalgia, call it schadenfreude (if you can), but I can't help but smile as the same old cries go up as favourites get left ten lengths at the start, unseat at the first or are chinned on the line before some wise owl sidles up to show you his winning slip.

As suggested by some of the Racing Post's leading tipsters as they gave their advice for Safer Gambling Week – which was this week if you've been in a cave – going to the trouble of obtaining cash and getting to a shop is a great way to ensure you are placing bets you really think are worth it.

It's not just the effort involved that's important, it's that betting in public, surrounded by the community of fellow punters and betting shop staff, is very different from betting solo, particularly at a time when the lure of the black market offers anonymity and a lack of accountability.

And it's a happy coincidence that the Racing Post Betting Shop Manager of the Year awards took place this month to give a timely reminder that the quality required to win that prize, or even to be nominated by customers, is excellence at caring for those who come through the door.

Betting from the comfort of home is convenient and so is opening a can of supermarket beer while doing so, yet many of us still choose to pay eyewatering amounts for a pint in a pub because we are social beings who enjoy the conviviality of the place. Thankfully, placing a bet in a bookies costs no more than the shoe leather of getting there.

Good shops serve a purpose, and not just for sheltering from the rain.

Read more:

You may be a shrewd punter but that does not make you invulnerable to gambling harm 

'If you don't find races you feel strongly about then don't bet' 

When it comes to risk and betting, be more Buffett 

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