Bookmaking Offices Assessment and Monitoring

The council has undertaken an assessment of bookmaking offices within Belfast LGD. The baseline information was sourced from the council's Licensing department, who provided a list of bookmakers who renewed their licence in court in 2019. This information was supplemented by a desktop exercise to ensure that all premises identified in the baseline information was accurate; this included a systematic check of the store locator function on the websites of a number of major betting shop chains. However, this is not considered an exhaustive list; there may be some premises that have been omitted, or there may be some establishments which have subsequently closed or changed use. Map 5 shows the location of bookmaking offices in the district and cross-referenced against existing district and local centres, and arterial routes. The survey revealed that there are currently 91 bookmaking offices within the LGD. Within Belfast city centre, there are 23 bookmaking offices. The map shows that the majority of bookmaking offices outside the city centre are located along arterial routes (44 bookmaking offices). The Council is committed to monitoring the location of bookmaking offices within Belfast LGD on an annual basis.