Recreational betting: everyday activity and strategies

Abstract

This paper analyses aggregate betting behaviour as revealed by data embodied in the betting slips of off-course betting shop punters. A large sample (9000) slips were collected from three Birmingham shops belonging to a large multiple bookmaking company. Data from the slips were processed by computer. The discussion reveals some of the behavioural and preferential patterns of betting shop punters as a basis for evaluating a number of assumptions derived from the sociology of gambling which have escaped careful evidential scrutiny. The discussion concludes that, on the whole, punters are indeed engaged in a primarily recreational activity whose economic consequences are very unlikely to be life-changing.

Recreational betting: individual betting profiles

“…A typical example is provided by punter 60 who bet doubles and trebles on horses and SFs and RFs on dogs, staking similar sums in each case. While some punters kept their betting media separate in bets, others - (Filby and Harvey, 1988) to be a tiny proportion of the total and this is reflected in individual profiles.…”

“…In a previous article (Filby and Harvey, 1988) we described some characteristics of the betting and staking patterns of betting-shop punters. The discussion was based on an analysis of aggregate data derived from a large number of betting transactions in three Birmingham betting shops.…”

“…These were located in the city centre, an inner-city area and a suburb. The starting point for the analysis was the observation that, despite the considerable sophistication of some sociological accounts of gambling, and betting in particular, little if any attention had been given to the detailed betting habits and strategies of punters (see Filby and Harvey, 1988, for a summary of these accounts). There seemed to be a mismatch between interpretative ingenuity and the level of focused empirical observation.…”

Costing excitement in leisure betting

“…Betting, in its various forms, is widely acknowledged as an important leisure pursuit (e.g., see Filby and Harvey, 1988). This may in large part relate to the fact that, as Saunders and Turner (1987) note, betting is: 'a form of risk taking that involves the material commodity of money and the emotional experience of excitement.'…”

Untitled

“…A study of betting shops by Filby and Harvey (1988) indicated that over 20% of all bets in the UK were forecasts.…”