Working at the bookies - by Gavin — Gavin English Teacher

I spent many years working in a bookies (betting shop) called ‘Coral’. A bookies is a shop on the high street where people can bet. You can bet on the roulette machines, on live sports, horse races, dog races, politics, the weather and much more. I accepted people’s bets and then paid them out when they won.

The ethics

Bookies have a reputation for being quite grim places. I felt bad when I was working in the bookies, because I knew that I was working for an evil, parasitical industry that preys upon gambling addicts, particularly in deprived areas. For these reasons, I was never motivated when I was at work.

One of our regular customers in a West London shop was a lovely man called George. The moment George received his monthly pension, he went straight to the supermarket to buy as much food as he could possibly carry, because he knew that immediately after this trip to the supermarket, all of his money would disappear in the bookies. George used to sweat when he gambled.

The perks

Despite my ethical concerns, I can’t say I didn’t enjoy the job. On a Sunday, the bookies were often quiet, and I could just sit, relax and watch football from all over the world, drinking tea and eating chocolate biscuits. My favourite colleague to work with was Jerome because we both loved talking about football and he was very good at solving any problems that came up in the shop. We used to have each other’s backs too. Sometimes, during his shift, I would let him go out and play for his football team. Sometimes, during my shift, he would let me go out and work my second job as a football coach. This all changed when they introduced a fingerprint scanner to clock in and out of work.

The boss

I had many bosses while working at Coral, but perhaps the most memorable was a Polish woman called Ewa. Ewa was a 45ish year old woman with fair hair and a substantial amount of makeup. She was the type of shop manager who could look at you with a face so angry that it seemed like bolts of lightning were shooting from her eyes, but by the time she had turned her head 180 degrees to face a customer, she would be wearing the smile of an angel. She was always striving to follow company policy and maintain the highest standards in her shop. Ewa loved Coral so much that I could imagine her asking to be buried wearing a full Coral uniform at her funeral. Her ‘love’ for the company was evidently intertwined with her desire to rise through its ranks.

At Coral, we used to give out unlimited free teas and coffees to regular customers. One day Ewa received a message from senior management saying that we were spending too much money on free teas and coffees, so Ewa decided to start charging the customers for hot drinks. This put me in an uncomfortable position, because regular customers had got used to me giving them virtually unlimited free cups of tea and coffee, and now I was being asked to charge them. Against Ewa’s instructions, I tried to continue to sneak the customers free teas and coffees. One day, Ewa caught me giving George a free cup of coffee – she looked at me as if I had just given away our family’s last bag of flour in the middle of a famine.

In Ewa’s mind, relaxation was the gravest sin. Even when all of the work was done and the shop was empty of customers, you could never just sit down and relax, because Ewa would conjure up some pointless job for you to do - ‘go and check that all of the pens in that box still have ink’ or ‘take out all of the posters and roll them up neatly and put them back in again’.

It should be said that, deep down, Ewa was a good person. Every now and again, you would see a friendly glint in her eye that revealed the kind woman under the pristinely ironed Coral uniform.

The conmen

Bookies are vulnerable to all types of crime, particularly armed robberies and conmen.

The most common con is called ‘slow counting’, which is slightly difficult to explain but I will do my best…

One day, I guy came into our shop and starting placing bets. He seemed like a lovely bloke, asking me questions about my favourite football team, tipping me when he won a bet. After a while, he came running up to me with a betting slip in his hand which had written on it ‘£500 Trap 2 Romford 2:30pm’… ‘Put it on! Put it on!’ he shouted. Literally just as the race started, I processed the bet for £500 for dog number 2 to win the race at Romford at 2:30pm. The bet was on. Meanwhile, the man was fumbling around in his wallet, supposedly looking for his £500. What he was actually doing was listening to the radio commentary of the dog race. When it became clear that his dog had lost the race, he placed a £5 note on the counter. ‘Where is the rest of the £495?’ I asked him. ‘Nah it was only for £5 mate, can’t you see the decimal point after the 5?’. If you looked really, really closely, the betting slip read ‘£5.00’ not ‘£500’. I had been scammed. This scamming method is called ‘slow-counting’, where the customer places a bet for a large amount of money but leaves a very, very faint decimal point after the first digit. If he hears his dog is winning, he will put the full amount of money on the table. If he hears his dog is losing, he will put only the first digit in money on the table.

This is a list of key vocabulary and expressions from the article in order of how useful they are. The student must choose 6 items from the list to study in the lesson.

Bet/ Gamble

To get used to (doing) something

Pointless

To sneak

To bury (something/ someone)

Despite

To come up

Meanwhile

To have someone’s back

Vulnerable

As if

Grim