Bet Fred

"Right then," said Fred – cue the violins, because Fred Done’s got his handkerchief out. The Betfred boss has warned that if Rachel Reeves dares to raise gambling taxes, he might have to close all 1,287 of his beloved High Street betting shops. Seven and a half thousand jobs gone, he sobs. The British High Street in ruins, he wails. The nation’s punters forced – forced! – to bet with unscrupulous offshore bookies instead of his nice, respectable ones in Manchester.

Let’s get this straight. Betfred took in nearly a billion quid last year. After “asset writedowns” (translation: creative accounting), it somehow made only half a million in operating profit. Meanwhile, Fred himself is a billionaire with bolt-holes in Gibraltar, the US, and South Africa – which, funnily enough, are not known for their punishing tax regimes. Yet he’d have us believe that an extra 5 per cent on gambling duty will send him to the poorhouse.

He reckons 300 of his shops already lose money. Raise taxes, he warns, and that number could rise to 430. Quite. Because what better business model is there than keeping 300 loss-making shops open on principle? He admits punters are moving online anyway, but apparently Reeves is to blame for that too. The High Street’s dying, he says, and if it goes, it’ll never come back. Which, given he also admits it’s got “about 20 years of life left”, sounds less like a threat and more like an obituary notice.

Then there’s the moral gymnastics. According to Fred, High Street betting shops “safeguard” problem gamblers better than online casinos. Nothing says “responsible gambling” quite like a bloke in a tabard offering you a loyalty card and a free bet on the 3:30 at Kempton. The truth is, most of the industry’s profit comes from a tiny number of addicts – exactly why the Institute for Public Policy Research suggests taxing it more heavily, like cigarettes and booze.

And if Gordon Brown wants that revenue to tackle child poverty, who can argue? Only the sort of man who thinks a one-armed bandit is part of the nation’s cultural fabric. Fred warns that if Reeves listens to Brown, we’ll drive punters offshore. But that’s like the drinks industry saying higher beer duty will make everyone start home-brewing methanol. The punters will keep punting – they always do.

What’s really going on is that Reeves is taking aim at a sector that’s profited handsomely from human weakness, and Fred doesn’t like it. He calls it a “threat” to his business; the rest of us might call it overdue. His odds of winning this particular bet? By his own admission, “ten to one against.” Which is fitting, really – since the house usually wins.

Except this time, it might not.