YouGov Poll Reveals Vital Role Betting Shops Play on the High Street

The latest data confirms the struggles facing the UK high street.

According to Drapers, more than 6,000 retail premises closed in England and Wales between 2020-2025; an average of 23 per week.

So a new YouGov poll into the behaviour patterns of high street betting shop customers is illuminating – according to the stats, 90% of those surveyed confirmed that they combine placing their bets with visits to other retail stores and local amenities.

The takeaway is that betting shops can have a positive impact on the present and the future of the UK high street… assuming they’re not taxed into oblivion, that is.

Betting on the Bookies

The research has been published on the Entain website, although there’s no doubting the veracity of the data – the results were pulled from an official YouGov poll, after all, which posed questions to 1,475 UK adults.

The study confirms the importance of betting shops in driving footfall into towns and cities, with nine in ten respondents combining their trip to the bookies with other retail spending in the local area – the so-called ‘bounce effect’.

And when the range of available answers included ‘occasionally’, the number of punters bookending their betting shop visit with spending in other stores or amenities rose to 98%.

Community Role

The respondents were also quizzed on their perception of betting shops generally. Some 60% of those surveyed were in favour of them as they supported local employment, while 68% agreed that betting shops were an ‘established’ part of the UK high street.

And another, often unforgotten, trait of betting shops is the social role they play in communities. More than three-quarters of respondents considered their local bookies to be a positive place to meet people and interact with others – almost identical to the 77% who responded that cafes play a key function in social connection and interaction.

Those findings chime with a separate YouGov poll conducted earlier this year, which confirmed that the way in which betting shops are viewed by the public hasn’t really changed since the organisation started tracking opinions in 2019.

Autumn Budget Hopes

While the YouGov data paints a picture of positivity for high street betting shops, the actual landscape is rather bleaker.

Approximate figures suggest that more than 600 betting shops have permanently closed in the UK since the Autumn Budget of 2025, when Rachel Reeves decimated the industry with her gambling tax grab.

If we wind the clock back to 2020 and the pandemic, the total number of closures since tops 3,000.

Economic Consequences

That’s why so many industry stakeholders are concerned about what’s contained in John Healey’s Autumn Budget, which will be revealed on Wednesday lunchtime. Any increase in Machine Games Duty (MGD), which is paid on the machines found in betting shops, casinos and bingo halls, could lead to further closures and mass redundancies.

There were fears that MGD could be hiked by as much as 20%, although conflicting reports – first appearing in The Times – suggest that the Chancellor may instead be planning a compromised increase of 5%.

Even so, that could mean that break-even or small profit betting shops are no longer financially viable. The Betting and Gaming Council’s Grainne Hurst commented: “Any further tax increase would heap more pressure on an industry already facing substantial tax rises, threatening jobs and high streets.

“With the budget still to come, we urge the chancellor to consider the full economic consequences of any further tax increases and protect the jobs, businesses and British sport that depend on the regulated industry.”