Fred Done: Doubling Machine Duty Would Shut 495 Betfred Shops and 2,475 Jobs

The Betfred founder has put numbers on the Treasury's option: 45% of his estate, 2,475 jobs, £66.8m of tax and £15.8m of racing funding, in a Sunday Times op-ed and a Financial Times interview in which he says machines are half of shop profit. Betfred has already ended its Super League sponsorship, citing last year's Budget.

• Fred Done, chairman and co-founder of Betfred, wrote in The Sunday Times and told the Financial Times that a doubling of Machine Games Duty from 20% to 40% would close about 495 shops, 45% of Betfred's estate, with the loss of 2,475 jobs, £66.8 million in taxes and £15.8 million a year in horseracing funding
• Fixed-odds betting terminals account for half of Betfred's shop profits, Done told the FT, and "by 2030 we will have no betting shops" if the duty rises
• Betfred will not extend its title sponsorship of rugby league's Super League, which it has held since 2017, when the deal ends after this season, Done confirmed, citing "last year's extremely disappointing Budget" and wage inflation
• Betfred closed 132 shops in July with about 600 jobs lost, and Done says its sponsorship of the five Classic flat races could follow if the Budget on 28 October raises machine duty
• The Treasury is understood to be modelling a doubling proposed by the Social Market Foundation, and analysts have told the Racing Post it could cost nearly 3,000 shops across the industry

The Largest Independent Has Given the Treasury a Shop Count

Fred Done has put company-specific numbers on the Machine Games Duty increase the Treasury is reported to be considering for the Budget on 28 October. In an opinion piece in The Sunday Times and an interview with the Financial Times, the Betfred chairman said the Social Market Foundation's June proposal to double the standard rate of the duty from 20% to 40% would, if adopted, close around 495 of Betfred's shops, about 45% of its estate, with 2,475 jobs, £66.8 million of tax and £15.8 million of annual horseracing funding lost with them.

Machines are the reason. Fixed-odds betting terminals account for half of Betfred's shop profits, Done told the FT, and the duty on their net takings is the tax that falls most directly on a licensed betting office. "I believe that by 2030 we will have no betting shops," he said. "The high street will be dead." He aimed the remark at Prime Minister Andy Burnham's stated ambition to revive British high streets.

Betfred has already acted on last year's Budget, which raised remote gaming duty from 21% to 40% from April and will introduce a 25% rate of general betting duty on online sports betting from April 2027. Neither applies to retail, but the company closed 132 shops in July, about 10% of its UK network, with around 600 jobs, £17.8 million in taxes and £4.2 million of racing funding lost, and chief executive Joanne Whittaker said at the time that higher employer National Insurance was also a factor. On Monday Betfred confirmed it will not extend its sponsorship of rugby league when the current agreement ends after the 2026 season. It has been title sponsor of the Super League since 2017, sponsor of the Challenge Cup since 2021 and a principal partner of the England men's, women's and wheelchair teams for four years.

"Regrettably, following last year's extremely disappointing Budget, and the ensuing combination of tax rises and wage inflation that led directly to the 132 shop closures we announced in July, it has been necessary to review all Betfred spending," Done said. "It is with a very heavy heart that we have taken the decision not to extend our support for rugby league." Rhodri Jones, interim chief executive of the Rugby Football League, called Betfred an "outstanding" partner over the past decade. Done said the company's sponsorship of the five Classic flat races over the next three years could also go if the Budget raises machine duty.

The wider estate is contracting on the same logic. Paddy Power said this month it would close up to 100 shops, a fifth of its estate, William Hill announced 200 closures in March, and Entain has put 400 customer care jobs into consultation citing the tax rises. Industry analysts told the Racing Post that a doubling of the duty could close nearly 3,000 shops across the sector and cut the horserace betting levy by about £70 million. Betfred's network is more than 1,200 venues with around 7,500 staff. "I'm not asking anyone to feel sorry for bookmakers, but I am asking the government to open its eyes," Done wrote. "Please, let us breathe."

Half of Shop Profit Is a Number the Treasury Will Read Two Ways

Done's disclosure that machines are half of Betfred's shop profit is the most useful figure in either piece, and it cuts against him as much as for him. To the industry it proves that a machine tax is a shop tax, that the counter business alone does not carry the rent, and that doubling the duty on the profitable half closes the whole. To a Treasury official it says that a business the public thinks of as a bookmaker is, at the margin, a gaming-machine operator, which is the framing the Social Market Foundation used to justify the proposal and the one the £17.5 billion gross gambling yield figure encourages. The number is honest, and honesty about where the money comes from has rarely helped the sector in a Budget round.

Sponsorship Withdrawals Are the Lobbying, and They Are Priced to Be Noticed

Betfred did not need to leave rugby league on the same weekend its founder wrote for The Sunday Times, and the sequence is the point. A sponsorship the sport calls outstanding is being withdrawn with a reason attached, the Classics are named as next, and the racing levy figures are stated to the hundred thousand pounds. Every operator in the United Kingdom is now running the same playbook: closures announced with job counts, sponsorships ended with the Budget cited, and a Chancellor invited to own the consequences. It worked poorly last year, when the remote duty nearly doubled anyway, and the difference this time is that the shops are visibly closing before the vote rather than after it.

2030 Is a Forecast the Government Can Test Against Its Own Data

The claim that there will be no betting shops by 2030 is a warning, not a projection, and Done's own numbers do not support it literally: a 45% closure leaves 55% of the estate. But the direction is not in dispute. Shop numbers fell 5% in the last industry count, and every operator has said it will cut further if the duty rises. The Treasury's calculation is whether the revenue from a higher rate on a shrinking base exceeds the levy, the business rates and the employment taxes it forgoes as the base shrinks. Done has supplied one company's answer; the Racing Post's analysts have supplied the sector's. The Chancellor has five weeks to supply his.

Betfred has said what it will close and what it will stop paying for. The Budget will show whether a shop count moves a Treasury that a duty rate did not.