The Gambling Links Teddington Has
Teddington might not be the first place that people will think about when it comes to gambling. It’s a civilised corner in south west London, which has twice been named as the best place to live in the city. It’s best known for its riverside walks and a lock which indicates where the tidal Thames ends.
However, taking a closer look at the town’s history uncovers some gambling threads. This includes a Victorian racehorse that brought this name across all of Britain’s iconic tracks. There was also a television studio that gave Britain some of its best entertainment and advertised casino culture to the nation. Teddington actually has always known something about the thrill of a good bet.
The Racehorse That Made the Town Famous
Teddington was one of the most successful racehorses during the early 1850s. He won ten out of the 18 races in which he competed, including the Doncaster Cup and the Emperor of Russia’s Plate. He was a celebrated animal, bred with care and raced at the highest level across Britain, carrying the name of this stretch of the Thames into the annals of Victorian sporting history.
Sir Joseph Hawley had bought the horse, having been a Londoner. He was against gambling it is said, but still managed to win a notional wager of £80,000 on a horse, which was huge money especially back then. Teddington eventually retired to stud and ended up in Hungary. However, the name lived on in the town.
Kempton Park
Just up the road from Teddington is Kempton Park. This is one of the premier racetracks in the country and is just a 20 minute train from Teddington station. There’s a great history at Kempton over the years and it’s often been a popular form of entertainment for people looking for a day out from Teddington. The paddock is only a short walk from the bar, so it often has a merry atmosphere.
Kempton Park has been a racecourse since 1876 and since then it has hosted some of the most prestigious races in the calendar. Kempton Park is famously home of the Christmas jumping showpiece, the King George VI Chase. This is the most prestigious jumps race of the festive season, alongside the Christmas Hurdle. That’s why Boxing Day at Kempton is one of the best days in the British racing year.
Thames Television, which for decades made its programmes in Teddington Studios, had the rights at Kempton and Sandown Park. That meant that its broadcast vans were typically at weekday meetings. This brought together Teddington’s television industry with the world of horse racing.
Teddington Studios
The most famous institution in the town is the studio complex of Teddington Studios. It was a major complex that produced shows for a wide range of networks including BBC, Channel 4, ITV, Sky One, and Channel 5. It originally was film studios before becoming a major centre of entertainment programmes like game shows, dramas, comedy and children’s shows.
The list of productions made within those studios reads like a roll call of British cultural history. Teddington Studios under Thames Television was the home of many classic series including This is Your Life, The Des O’Connor Show, various Tommy Cooper shows, Opportunity Knocks, The Kenny Everett Video Show, The Sooty Show, Magpie, Rainbow and The Benny Hill Show.
The complex was also the site for several gaming ads, including in 2013 when Jackpotjoy filmed marketing material for its prospective audience. Teddington Studios is now no more after its lease expired in 2014 and the studios were demolished in 2016. It’s now been replaced by houses and apartments.
It was a sad day for the town, as the iconic programmes had to move elsewhere. There are some plaques commemorating some of the biggest shows. However, several of them were stolen during development. They were subsequently recovered and are now found along a river walkway, celebrating Benny Hill, Tommy Cooper, Morecambe and Wise.
Where Online Gaming Fits In
There is something fitting about the fact that a town so steeped in television history, a place where the mechanics of entertainment were literally manufactured for decades, should find itself at ease with the digital leisure revolution that has transformed how Britain spends its evenings.
Online casino gaming has grown enormously over the past decade, and the demographic that has driven much of that growth looks remarkably like Teddington itself: professional, time-pressed, accustomed to quality, and perfectly happy to find their entertainment on a screen rather than commuting across London to find it.
The same broadband connections that stream films into Teddington’s Victorian terraces and send work emails to Waterloo now deliver roulette tables, blackjack rooms and slot games to living rooms that, a generation ago, would have required a trip to central London to access that kind of night.
The appeal is straightforward. Modern online casino platforms offer the full breadth of what a physical casino provides, live dealer games with real croupiers streamed in real time, the full range of table games, hundreds of slot variations, without the dress code, the travel, or the minimum spend at the bar.
For a town that has always understood that the best evening is one spent exactly where you want to be, with exactly the kind of entertainment you actually want, that proposition is a natural fit.
A Leisurely Town
Teddington has always been a town that enjoys and understands leisure. It knows the value of enjoying yourself, whether it’s a long walk in Bushy Park or a race day in Kempton with a small bet between races.
Teddington is a popular destination these days, with The Sunday Times naming it as the best place to live in London in 2021. The Happy at Home Index also ranked it as the happiest place to live in Great Britain in 2013, which was the first time a London borough earned that distinction.
The level of happiness seen around the area isn’t accidental. It’s the outcome of a community that has always known how to enjoy the pleasures of life.