From The Bureau of Investigative Journalism – It’s 10am and already there’s a knot of men at the back of the betting shop. The strip-lit space is filled with the chatter of racing commentary, but the clients aren’t paying attention. Instead, they’re intently focused on a bank of tall touchscreen machines near the counter.
A man in his sixties in a tatty hat is playing poker games on two machines at once; to either side of him younger men play digital roulette. It’s been half an hour since anybody placed a sports bet, but each of the shop’s four gaming terminals is busy.
Mikheil isn’t having a good morning. He feeds in £20 and arranges his chips on the screen. He hits the Bet button, and watches an animation of a ball circling a roulette wheel, jittering into a slot with a clacking sound. No luck. He plays again. Within a couple of minutes he’s inserting another £20. The total in his electronic bank swells rapidly – at one point he’s up £170. He could cash it in. But he doesn’t, and it quickly vanishes.
By the time he leaves he’s lost £260, and it’s barely 11am. As a painter and decorator Mikheil earns £400 a week. But this week there’s no work, and he’s whiling away the mornings playing high-speed roulette.
‘It’s one of those things you do, and you know it’s not good, but you do it anyway,’ he says. ‘Even when you win and take your money, it’s not enough – you’ll just lose it again next time.’
The total in his electronic bank swells rapidly – at one point he’s up £170. He could cash it in. But he doesn’t, and it quickly vanishes. By the time he leaves he’s lost £260, and it’s barely 11am.
Outside the shop, someone has broken the glass in the bus stop. This is Green Lanes in Haringey, one of London’s poorest boroughs. The street, a cluttered and unlovely artery road, is filled with battered grocers and pawnbrokers; Mikheil is far from the only one drifting about looking for ways to fill the time. Almost the only big operators are the bookmakers – and they are here in force.
