For those of a certain age, as they say, the term ‘betting shop’ may conjure up an image of cloth caps, smoke-filled dreary rooms and men hunched over the sports pages or watching a TV in the corner, with the windows as opaque as those of seedy sex shops.
But this image is as dead as the dinosaur, with high street shops such as Littlewoods and William Hill now as sleek and trendy as posh hotel foyers. With comfortable seating, refreshments, attentive staff and flat screen TVs relaying the action as it happens via satellite from all over the world, these are very pleasant places to be.
Bingo halls are no longer the reserve of women with hairnets and too much time on their hands, but glamorous emporiums where trendy young people meet up with friends as if they were in a funky nightclub, with the chance of winning some serious money thrown in!
But the really big difference these days is the huge growth in online gambling websites, which use state-of-the-art technology to provide you with an unprecedented online betting experience from the comfort of your own home. The number of sites is staggering, and includes not only the familiar names from the high street but scores of newcomers, so there’s something for everybody out there.
Whether you’re into the horses, dogs, football, bingo, slot machines or fun puzzle games, or indeed sophisticated financial spread betting, you’re sure to find what you’re after. Thanks to the Internet, online gambling has become as popular as watching the telly, and is probably better for stimulating the brain.