You never see a poor bookie, do you?
There’s another old saying: if you want to end up with a small fortune in bookmaking, start with a big one.
People often ask me what it takes to become a racecourse bookmaker and how much it costs.
It really is a wonderful life. A wonderful life, that is, if you’re willing to accept that results will shape your future, that you’ll get soaking wet and frozen in winter, sunburnt in summer, and very often return home with less money than you left with.
There aren’t many jobs where you can put in a full day’s work, do everything reasonably well and still pay for the privilege.
But there aren’t many jobs quite like this one.
A life in the ring
You’ll meet characters you would never otherwise encounter, good and bad. You’ll get to know customers, fellow bookmakers and racecourse staff, and become part of a travelling circus, united in an attempt to beat the punters and completely divided on how best to go about it.
A proper moan up is a prerequisite for any bookmaker and, believe me when I say it, we’re top class at it.
You’ll also develop firm opinions about motorway services after spending more time in a car than can possibly be healthy. Gloucester, with its farm shop, is the nap for me, although it helps to have had a winning day first.
There will be highs, afternoons when your judgement is rewarded and the journey home feels short. There will be lows when the journey home is silent.
And there will be regular kicks in the knackers and reminders that you don’t know as much as you think you did.
If all that still appeals, here’s what getting started involves.
First, the licence
You’ll need a non-remote general betting limited operating licence from the Gambling Commission. Application fees start at a smidge over £2,000.
The application can look daunting, but it isn’t too bad once you work through what is required. It’s not a stich on what we had to go through to get the dragonbet website operational.
You are applying to run a gambling business, so you should expect questions about yourself, your finances and how you intend to operate.
There are application and annual fees to budget for, along with the relevant racecourse authorisation and documentation.
Association membership is another optional expense, providing public liability insurance and access to alternative dispute resolution.
Buying the tools
Barry Dennis was quoted as saying that all you need is “tickets and chalk”. Sadly, those days have gone.
A modern bookmaker needs a fair amount of equipment and a car with a big enough boot to fit it all in.
Using one supplier’s price list, the shopping basket looks like this:
| Equipment | Price |
| Keyboard | £430 |
| LED display board | £6,500 |
| Box of till rolls | £35 |
| Lithium battery | £1,280 |
| Scanner | £150 |
| Protective foam case | £150 |
| Mini keyboard | £240 |
| USB hub | £22 |
| Laptop | £525 |
| Printer | £348 |
| Total | £9,680 |
The till rolls are £35 a box. Hopefully you’ll last long enough to get through more than one.
Then you need a bookmaker’s joint, the stand itself, at around £2,500, and an umbrella—or “mush”, as they’re known—at roughly £300.
That brings this complete new-equipment list to approximately £12,480. There are cheaper suppliers, and you can pick up bits second-hand, although sourcing them isn’t always easy.
The price of a pitch
As I’ve explained in a previous blog what’s a pitch, why do some cost 100’s of £1000’s and others you can buy for £50? pitch prices vary enormously.
The racecourse, enclosure and position in the picking order all influence what you’ll pay. A prominent position where plenty of people want a bet is naturally worth more than one where your main customer is the fella who’s lost his mates, lost his money and is asking if you’ll take £1 on the card.
An expensive pitch will almost certainly guarantee you turnover, but not profit. And a cheap pitch can be very expensive if you don’t know what you’re doing.
Equally, paying a substantial sum for a good position brings its own pressure. You need to earn a return on that investment as well as a living.
The purchase price is only part of the calculation. What can you realistically earn from it?
Money in the bag
You’ll need a starting float, too. How much depends on how you want to play and where you want to stand, but it helps to be able to pay out when someone backs a winner.
There is no sensible universal figure. A bookmaker taking modest bets at occasional meetings has different requirements from one laying substantial bets throughout the year. You also need enough behind you to withstand a losing run. Having the money to get started and having the money to keep going are two different considerations.
Paying to go to work
Then come the daily expenses.
There is the betting badge. At the minimum multiplier of five times the ordinary admission price, for example, a £25 entrance ticket becomes a £125 expense before you’ve taken a bet.
There are also annual “marketing” fees to factor in for the list positions you hold. We’re told these contribute towards the racecourse’s marketing budget (at least once a year the favoured subject on the bookmakers moan up list.)
Add wages and petrol, staff admission where applicable, and perhaps accommodation if you’re travelling further afield.
The costs arrive regardless of the results.
A wet afternoon, a disappointing crowd or a string of winning favourites doesn’t make the journey any cheaper.
This is why a winning book and a profitable day aren’t necessarily the same thing. Finish £400 ahead and, once you’ve paid the day’s expenses, you’ll likely still have done your money.
Surely there’s plenty to go around?
Reported annual on-course horseracing turnover was approximately £270 million.
That sounds enormous. But turnover is the money staked, much of which goes straight back to customers.
For illustration, assume bookmakers retain 10%. That leaves £27 million before operating expenses. Divide it between, say, 300 active bookmakers and you arrive at £90,000 each.
A healthy income, you’d think. But that is before expenses and takes no account of the capital invested in pitches.
It’s also a rough illustration, not an earnings survey. Some businesses operate multiple pitches and employ teams; others work on a much smaller scale. The money is certainly not shared equally.
I suspect plenty of bookmakers are earning something close to minimum wage once you deduct the expenses and count all the hours spent travelling, setting up, trading, packing away and doing the paperwork.
You never see a poor bookie, though.
Would I recommend it?
To the right person, absolutely.
You need to enjoy people, understand figures and accept uncertainty. You need to cope with losing without letting it dictate the next decision, and winning without assuming you’ve cracked it.
You also need to love the work on the ordinary days, when it’s cold, business is quiet and home is several hours away.
I’ll be forever thankful that racecourse bookmaking has allowed me to live a life less ordinary. I’ve shared the ring with true characters, and there’s very rarely a day you could call boring. For me, there’s no better feeling than driving to work wondering what the hell is going to happen today.
Would I pretend it’s an easy living? No.
Would the costs and the bad afternoons put me off?
They haven’t managed it yet.
