Like many of the other leisure segments, the gambling industry has been transformed in the last 10-15 years so it's unclear how relevant the lesson of the early 90s? Bookmaking might have been a resilient, low-ticket habitual purchase but nowadays it's highly dependent on FOBTs which account for the majority of spend and where consumption is larger ticket and presumably more discretionary.
It could be about to get ugly for the likes of Ladbrokes...
http://uk.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUKTRE49525120081006
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ae3f0ede-933f-11dd-98b5-0000779fd18c.html
