What Is William Hill’s First Fully Digitised Betting Shop Like?

The world is becoming more digital by the day. We’ve got electronic payment methods, AI that writes essays for us, and even whole new online worlds that people can buy land in.

In the gambling industry, esports has carved out a nice little niche for itself, and virtual sports are available at any online bookie and most real life bookmakers too.

A lot of bookmakers, however, still look a little bit old fashioned when compared to other high street shops. You just need to look at the worn out carpet tiles, the crinkled pages of the Racing Post stuck to the boards, and the polystyrene ceilings and you feel like you are back in the 90s.

Sure, they’ve all had flat screen TVs installed, but not many people would consider them pleasant places to spend any amount of time.

Enter William Hill.

Although Entain beat them to it by giving all of their Coral and Ladbrokes shops a lovely café style makeover, William Hill have gone one further, blasting off into the future to create their first fully-digitised betting shop.

The plan is to roll this out across their whole portfolio eventually, but the one I went to visit was the first; their Vicar Lane location, in Leeds.

I spent a good couple of hours in there, placing bets, earwigging on other people’s conversations, and trying out all of the machines… and I may have sampled a few drinks and a bar of chocolate too.

They say it’s paperless, they say it’s the future.

Here’s what I found.

First Impressions

The shop has two entrances, although I didn’t know that until later.

Of course, I chose the door with the dodgy closing mechanism, so as soon as I stepped inside and let it go it slammed behind me. And I do mean slammed. I’m ashamed to say it made me jump, but I think I got away with it.

The shop was very busy but no one batted an eyelid.

From the conversations I could hear around me that’s because they were all regular users of the shop, so must be used to it by now.

I soon forgot the dodgy door too, because my brain was distracted by what was in front of me.

The place was beautifully decked out, from the carefully designed mixture of strip lights and spotlights effectively using lighting build atmosphere and illuminate key areas, to the many bright screens and all of the different ‘zones’ – it was a lot to take in.

William Hill’s dark blue branding was clear, although the place felt anything but dark or dingy. What looked like acoustic wood panelling covered the walls which softened things up, while digital signage and neon style decorations adorned the walls in appropriate places to help separate one zone from another, as well as adding splashes of vibrant colour.

The place certainly has atmosphere.

It’s not the flashy noisy atmosphere of a casino though, and it’s about as far away from the dingy smelly bookmakers of old as you can get. In fact, there is apparently ‘scent-technology’ installed here – which probably just means some sort of air freshener – not that I noticed it, but then perhaps that’s the point.

It’s a place that has ambience that’s for sure. It’s calm and cool and laid back, but also allows for those pops of excitement as a race nears its conclusion and the bettors start to cheer on their nag.

This particular shop is on two levels separated by a couple of steps, with a sports betting area at each entrance and the staff desk and gaming machines in the middle, along with a dedicated space for taking a break and talking about safer gambling if needed.

The shop dog legs so you can pick an end and settle in, or wander around the corner and down the steps if you feel like a change.

There are screens and machines everywhere, but not all of them are for gambling. There are many others showing live sports or digital sports in the WHLive media walls, and plenty of screens displaying the Racing Post in digital format.

Others take the place of the old newspaper stands displaying the day’s horse/dog races and runners, so the same information is available but it is displayed on a screen instead of on a sheet of newspaper pinned to a board.

People can come together to watch an event on the media wall, then scatter to the various stations in the shop once the event is over, which creates a constant and predictable flow of movement throughout the shop.

Using the Shop

Onto the important bit then, because it’s all well and good the place looking and feeling lovely, but if it’s a pain in the backside to use all the tech it counts for nought.

Happily, it works like a charm.

The only problem I spotted was access for people using walkers or wheelchairs, and there were a couple while I was visiting.

They have no problem actually getting into the shop, but the way it is laid out means that other customers are slightly in the way while using the machines against the wall, or sat on the stools watching the William Hill Live area.

It’s not a big deal, a quick “scuse me mate” was all it took, but I got in the way twice in the space of 20 minutes.

Let’s look at the various different ways the shop is used in turn.

Studying Form and Research

We will start where most bettors start when they go into a bookie, studying form and researching bets.

In a traditional bookie the pages from the day’s paper will be pinned to the walls and punters can gather around them to have a look.

In a digitised William Hill though, this has all been moved onto interactive screens. So a punter doesn’t have to share their space with anyone else or move around the room to find the race they want, it’s all in one place.

The digital pages can be turned with a tap on the screen, if something is a bit too small for you (the print on those newspapers is tiny) you can zoom in to make it bigger. Some areas can also be expanded or hidden away for more/less information.

There are also screen stations where the racing papers are displayed just to read for interest or ongoing industry research. Like reading a magazine on a kindle, but industry related and in the betting shop.

The areas displaying the horse races are helpfully signposted, as are the areas displaying the dog races, and there are plenty of them too.

Of course, if you wanted to bring a physical copy of the papers in you could do, and sit back in the comfy chairs at the bigger tables with a coffee and a KitKat (other snacks are available).

Betting

Even people who have never used a machine to place a bet before could have it down after a few goes, and there will always be someone to help if you are struggling – staff and customers alike.

These newer betting terminals will be familiar to anyone who has used an older version before though.

They accept bank notes and cards, then turn that money into machine credit for bettors to use on their wagers. At any point you can ask the machine to ‘Pay Out’, and it will spit out a coupon with a barcode worth the current value of your bankroll.

You can either take this to the kiosk to get cash, or use the barcode scanner built in to all the machines to use it as credit somewhere else.

The machines also spit out bet slips once a bet is made, and they work a lot like a bookie’s website might do in terms of navigation and layout.

You can bet on anything at the machines, so for getting a bet on quickly just before a race for example, they are ideal.

You can still place bets at the desk with a member of staff of course, they haven’t done away with written bet slips altogether, so traditionalists have nothing to worry about.

Facilities

The facilities here are better than I have seen in any other betting shop.

Alright, you have to pay for your drinks in William Hill whereas some other places give you a free brew, but there’s a good selection which may well diversify into hot food soon too, with plenty of litter bins tucked out of the way so rubbish doesn’t pile up.

The staff were doing a very thorough job of keeping the place clean too. I went into the Betfred across the road and it was a pigsty in comparison.

There was only one toilet but it was in an accessible place assuming you came in through the main entrance. I didn’t feel it necessary to check that, they might have thought I was a bit weird if I started taking pictures of the loo, but I would assume it’s kept to the same standards as the rest of the shop.

One huge difference between this and most other high street bookie shops, is the wireless phone charging stations. They are absolutely everywhere.

So customers can add a bit of juice to their devices while they settle in to the comfy seats to watch the race/game, or even use their phones as they are being charged to research bets or check the latest sports news etc.

This moves us on to the seating, which has already been covered to a point, but what is so clever about this shop is the different types of seating for different types of punters.

There are long thin bar stool seating stations for anyone just wanting somewhere to perch for a single race or to flick through the digital papers; there are ‘front row’ seats that feel a bit like being in a cinema looking up at the big screen for bettors who perhaps want to stay a bit longer; and there are really comfy leather lounge chairs at the bigger tables, set back from the action, where people can meet and talk, read the paper, but still keep half an eye on the many screens around the place.

The only thing missing really is a cash machine, since all of the gambling machines do still take cash. That said, they take card as well, so it’s not really an issue.

Safer Gambling

I was impressed by the amount of safer gambling paraphernalia around the place.

It wasn’t just shoved into a corner out of the way, it was placed sensibly next to the machines themselves, always in people’s eyeline so the message is constantly being reinforced wherever you look.

The reason this section of the article exists though, is because this digitised William Hill shop actually has its own dedicated space for people to take a break, away from the machines and the screens.

It is its own little zone next to the staff desk, and customers can pull staff members aside to talk about any problems if they want, as well as gain information and access to help from here.

It takes up a significant amount of space in the shop and is very well furnished, so it does feel like a genuine attempt from Hills, rather than just being there for show.

I didn’t see anybody using it during my time there, but I would hope that is because most people know how to gamble responsibly and didn’t feel the need to use it.

That said, it isn’t particularly private, which could put people off from using it.

The fact that it has been included in the first place though, is excellent.

Was it Better?

Undoubtedly.

You would need to be an absolute luddite to prefer the betting shops of old.

The thing with this new breed of bookmaker shops is that they still offer everything they offered before, but they are much nicer places to spend time in.

Even those who hate technology can enjoy them, because you don’t have to use the machines and screens if you don’t want to. There were people reading the physical papers too (although I think they may have bought them in themselves), and you can still place bets at the desk with a member of staff.

Hill’s claim it to be a paperless shop but it’s not, there are still betting slips and pens available.

The friendly chatter and passing remarks that make betting shops sociable was still going on around me – although it was funny listening to a couple of old boys moaning about the digital lotto game; “Complete waste o’time intit?” “Aye. You’d have to be bloody daft to chuck your money away on them”.

What a betting shop offers and what it represents hasn’t really changed, if anything, it’s been enhanced, because these newly designed locations feel cleaner and friendlier, so people are much more likely to feel comfortable talking to each other, and sticking around for a brew.

Hills have clearly put a lot of thought into how these new digital bookies should look, feel, and how the customer can get the best experience when using them.

That said, it’s not perfect – they still need to fix that bloody door.