The odds were stacked against a robber when he tried to raid a betting shop to get cash to settle debts, a court heard.

Wearing a bandana on his head and a scarf covering his face, Ryan Cooney demanded cash from the till.

But plucky manager Elizabeth Keenan told him: “I am not giving you any money. Are you having a laugh?”

When Cooney repeated the demand, Miss Keenan insisted: “You ain’t getting anything. Get out.”

The desperate 30-year-old tried to convince her he had a bomb. Her response was to laugh and reply: “Yeah right, you’re having a laugh. Don’t be stupid.”

The stunned robber then pretended he was only joking. Still unimpressed, Miss Keenan ordered him out of the William Hill bookies in Green Street, Gillingham.

Cooney still hoped his luck was in with a similar raid on a Paddy Power betting shop in the nearby High Street a few minutes later at 10.15am on June 25.

But again, the gamble failed. He approached Kerry Wilson at the counter and demanded money. She told him: “No.” He shouted: “Give me your ------- money.”

Miss Wilson pressed the panic alarm around her neck. Again, he claimed he was only joking before fleeing.

Cooney did, however, land one gamble when he went into the Halifax Bank in the High Street five minutes later.

Prosecutor Daniel Cohen told Maidstone Crown Court Cooney borrowed a pen from another customer and wrote a note. He then went to cashier Lawrence Morgan and quietly told him: “I have a collection.”

Asked what he meant, he handed over the note. Cooney told Mr Morgan: “Don’t you dare think I’m joking. I have a bomb. Give me the money.”

Mr Morgan said he would have to get authorisation from a manager, but Cooney threatened: “Don’t move, I’ll shoot your ------- face off.”

A total of £1,800 was handed over and Cooney left. A Fanta bottle with his DNA on it was found outside the bank.

Cooney went to a park in Khyber Road where students were playing football. He told them he had done something bad and asked them to call a cab for him.

When they refused he said he had raided bank and would give them £20. He was arrested soon afterwards on the MidKent College campus in Prince Arthur Road. He had £1,325 concealed in his sock.

Cooney, of Hilltop Road, Strood, admitted robbery and two offences of attempted robbery when he appeared by TV link with Elmley Prison on Thursday.

He had previous convictions including violence and robbery in 2009, for which he was jailed for two years.

Jailing him for four-and-a-half years, Judge Charles Macdonald QC described Miss Keenan as “redoubtable”. The raid on Paddy Power, he said, was also given “short shrift”.

“The experience must have been extremely frightening for all those concerned,” he added. “There was an incompetent attempt to conceal his identify. There is, in fact, no mitigation.”

Tom Stern, defending, said Chatham born Cooney had a strong work ethic but had been a class A drug user for most of his adult life.

A £10,000 drug debt had “attached” to him and premises in Chatham were set on fire, putting his life in danger.

Two men threatened the ground worker that his parents’ home would be torched if he did not pay the debt.

“He acted in reaction to pressure placed upon him,” said Mr Stern. “This is someone whose heart and commitment was not necessarily in what was going on.

“If you put yourself in the position of owing money as a result of drugs you get what is coming to you. He didn’t have great ambition to do what he did.

“On the third occasion the cashier felt a sense of fear and passed over the money. He accepted they must have been alarmed.”