On The Fiddle

From the outset, betting shops went all out for security. Bars (seen below) and bandit screens shielded the staff. But what about when staff went rogue? Betting Shops attract staff who are into gambling and sometimes they reckon they can beat the system. Only the development of cameras could preserve the profits. Here's an example of how it might be done from "Pollywasher":


When a bet is taken, the shop’s copy of the duplicate slip is passed through a camera. When a race-off announcement is made, an off-slip is put through the same camera. Any bets put through after that race off-slip will be void as they have been put on too late. The idea of this is to stop bets being put on when the race is half run and a dog or horse looks to have a clear lead. 

Unfortunately, that is what Barbara had started doing. The morning greyhound races come first in the day. Meetings begin mid-morning and go on over dinner time and then the horse racing begins. Early in the week, we often just have the manager and a cashier working at first, with an extra pair of hands coming along in the afternoon sometimes. Especially if there’s a big meeting on. Saturdays are different, they’re busy all day. The cashier and the manager take it in turns to have a dinner break, as they are in all day. They might leave the other one alone for half an hour if the afternoon cashier hasn’t arrived yet - or of course there may need to be 5 minutes away from the counter for a comfort break. Through head office’s investigation it emerged that while the manager went out to get a sandwich, or was taking one of his unfortunately habitually long visits to the toilet, an associate of Barbara’s was placing late greyhound bets with her co-operation. He would write out a couple of bets and when the race was half run and if the coast was clear, he handed over the one with the leading dog written on. Barbara would pass the off-slip through the camera immediately after. It might only be a few seconds too late, because the dog races are fast, but it was picked up when the time stamps were studied down to the millisecond. The bets started small - £5, £10, then as they got better practised and more confident they began to increase in value. They ended up drawing a few hundred pounds some days.


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