Betting shop operators and Merseyside Police late last year ran a campaign “Robbery – Odds on you’ll get caught”. Their message – people who rob or commit a crime in a betting shop will be caught and jailed.
‘Gamble Watch’ was launched where the police, environmental health, gambling commission, betting shops, amusment arcades and bingo halls share information.
Posters and leaflets were distributed to every business of this type across Merseyside in the run to Christmas to tell staff how to report suspicious behaviour and ensure they have security measures in place.
Chief Inspector Jenny Sims, leading the police’s response to retail crime, said betting shops, convenience stores and off-licences were not the easy targets that criminals thought they were. She said: “Criminals who target bookmakers are facing increasingly lengthy prison sentences for very little reward indeed. The betting industry and police in Merseyside work very closely together to ensure only the bare minimum amounts of cash are accessible at the premises and security measures are always used. The end result is that between April and August, we only had seven betting shops robbed in Merseyside and the amount stolen was around £50. However the offenders in those cases will face in the region of five or even ten years in prison when caught so my question to them would be: is it really worth it because the odds are you will get caught.”
Chief Insp Sims added; “Business robberies are not victimless crimes. Many of our bookmakers are run by local people who just want to earn a living and provide for their families. The person serving behind the counter could be someone’s mum, sister or grandmother yet these criminals think nothing of pointing a gun at them and screaming at them to open the till or safe. Some of these people will be left permanently traumatised by such an incident so it is important that we keep working with the betting industry and the local communities where these criminals hide to continue to reduce the number of robberies here on Merseyside.”
And Peter Craske of the Association of British Bookmakers said: “Betting shop operators want customers and staff to be as safe as possible and we are pleased to work with Merseyside Police on this campaign. We want to be clear – that if you try and rob a betting shop and put customers and staff at risk, the odds are you will be caught. This includes having high quality CCTV images which help the police catch criminals and provide evidence in court cases. All our members work to the guidelines set out in the Safe Bet Alliance, which is a national set of guidelines to prevent robberies of betting shops. The work of the alliance has won awards and been endorsed by the Association of Chief Police Officers, and we want to work closely with the police and local authorities to protect our customers and staff.”
