Coral is the fastest growing bookmaker in Britain, and has currently 1548 betting shops as of February 2007. Following the acquisition of the PageBet real estate, it has 44 shops. They are mostly concentrated in and around Humberside and Tyneside. A bid for the 540 totesport shops has been tabled. Coral owns two greyhound racing stadia in Britain at Romford and Hove. Coral also operates betting shops at three of Britain’s biggest racecourses that are Cheltenham, Sandown Park, and Epsom, plus one each at Stansted Airport and Gatwick Airport. The Gala Group owns and operates these online brands: Eurobet sport betting, Galacasinos, Galabingos, and Coral Bookmakers.

A man named Joe Coral began his bookmaking business in 1926 and, although primarily concerned with operating betting pitches at racecourses, he did open a credit office in the West End of London in 1943. Joe Coral was the first to take advantage of the new legislation and duly opened his first licensed betting office in 1961. The new law was not intended to encourage betting and therefore shops were positively unattractive in appearance and devoid of any comforts. In the year 1923, Coral owned 23 out of 13,340 betting offices in the year 1962. By the end of the 1970, the situation had changed. The four major bookmakers had evolved and now owned nearly 24 % of the 13,254 shops operating. Corals number then had grown to 589 as a result of a merger with another bookmaker named Mark Lane in 1971.

In 1975, the company had become the Coral Leisure Group and had diversified to include a variety of other leisure activities comprising with hotels, social clubs, casinos, and later holiday camps. However, in January of 1981, the Coral Group was acquired by Bass plc and although it continued to retain the Coral name, it became an integral part of the growing Bass Leisure. Bass is one of the oldest established United Kingdom companies, with William Bass having started the brewing company in 1777. With the support of Bass, the number of Coral shops continued to grow during the 80s. The private ownership meant more shops and more acquisitions were to come. By the time Coral joined with Gala, the number of shops were at 1260. Coral also owns and operates two greyhound stadia at Brighton, Romford and Hove, both of which operate using the Coral brand. At 2006 the United Kingdom Gambling Awards Coral was named “Bookmaker of the year”.