High Stakes Bookshop

The outside of the High Stakes bookshop on Great Ormond Street reminds of the comedy series Black Books where drunken shop owner Bernard Black used to sit with his feet up on the desk berating customers who dared to ask for a book and haranguing employee Manny and friend Fran.  It looks from the shop front like you could expect at any moment to see BB appear through the door, bottle of red in one hand, burning cigarette in the other, messy hair and permascowl in place, followed by a wild eyed Manny.  But, obviously this is not Black Books so I digress.  This bookshop is in fact very far from Black Books, not only because it is a proper bookshop but also because it is a speciality bookshop and if you haven’t guessed from the name, that speciality is gambling.

This speciality shop provides information on a wide range of gambling topics, including casino, roulette, greyhound racing, football betting, horse racing, poker in all its forms and spreadbetting and a wide range of other subject areas. The shop stocks a wide range of UK, American and international books on gambling as possible and has at its core a basic desire to provide new and informative titles that can help contribute to players’ understanding of the whichever sport they’re interested in.

It’s obviously a rather unusual speciality area for a bookshop, particularly given that most of the gambling action nowadays seems to take place online, but I find it rather charming.  Gambling in this incarnation seems like something of a gentleman’s sport as it used to be with techniques to learn and skills to acquire, as far away from the preserve of internet geeks and slightly sinister addicts as you can get.  Also, given the state of the economy at the moment, it might well be a rather smart way to start supplementing my income – one can never have too many shoes after all..(www.highstakespublishing.co.uk/bookshop).

High Stakes Bookshop
21 Great Ormond Street
London
WC1N 3JB
Tel: 020 7430 1021