Bookmakers Deny Shops Target the Poor

Over the course of the past few years, bookmakers have taken quite a lot of heat for supposedly targeting poverty-stricken areas. However, the Association of British Bookmakers has announced that this simply is not the case, as there is no real evident that shows that low income earners are the target of their practices.

Councillor Nilgun Canver claimed that betting shops and their owners target the poorest areas of St Ann’s, but Dirk Vennick of the British Bookmakers Association disagrees. He does not believe that there betting shops prey on low-income individuals, believing that it a simple leisure activity that does not aim to harm anyone.

“Betting shops offer a mainstream leisure product to adults who choose to use them,” says Vennick. “Similar to a couple of pints in the pub”.

However, according to a recent survey, the number of betting shops in poorer areas is much higher than in more affluent neighbourhoods. For example, there are 40 bookmakers in Tottenham but just 1 or 2 in areas like Fortis Green and High Gate.

Regardless, officials state that there is no correlation between the number of bookmakers in an area and its total income. The debate is likely to spark studies that seek to prove or disprove these claims.