Ireland’s retail bookmakers plan to reopen their shops in the final week of June, despite local racing’s plans to reopen three weeks earlier.

This past weekend, the Irish Bookmakers Association (IBA) announced that an agreement has been reached to reopen 755 of the nation’s 814 betting shops on June 29. The timing coincides with the third phase of the Irish government’s plan to restart its economy in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ireland shut most of its betting shops in mid-March in a bid to minimize further spread of the coronavirus, but the IBA stated at the time that the shutdown was intended to last only two weeks, not the three-plus months that it’s currently slated to last.

Irish racing plans to resume its operations on a ‘behind closed doors’ basis at certain centrally-located racecourses on June 8 – coinciding with phase two of the government’s recovery roadmap – with the Irish Derby hoping to stick to its current June 27 target. If so, it means Irish bookmakers will miss out on one of the bigger paydays on their traditional calendar.