Jenningsbet's Greg Knight: Media Rights, Not Tax, Will Decide Shop Survival

Betfred is closing 132 shops and blaming the Budget. Greg Knight, who runs Britain's largest independent bookmaker and sits on the Betting and Gaming Council's board, says the industry is chasing the wrong villain: a live-racing bill that has reached £70,000 a shop, and a sport that is quietly cannibalising its own funding.

• Jenningsbet chief executive Greg Knight argues that soaring live-racing media-rights costs, not the Autumn Budget's tax rises, are the primary threat to Britain's betting shops
• He says a typical shop's content and data bill has climbed from about £40,000 a year five years ago to roughly £70,000 now, pushing more shops into showing racing at a loss than ever before
• Knight forecasts a further 500 closures in 2027 and an estate that settles at around 4,500 shops, and warns of a "bloodbath" if Machine Games Duty is raised
• Despite the pressure, Jenningsbet expects to pass £100 million in gross gaming yield this year and has been opening shops while the corporates shut them
• A member of the Betting and Gaming Council's executive committee, Knight accuses racing's commercial arm of cannibalising its own funding and says he is prepared to "go dark" at the next renewal

Britain's Biggest Independent Bookmaker Is Not Reading From the Industry Script

In late July, Betfred confirmed it would close 132 shops and cut more than 600 jobs, the largest name yet to point at the Autumn 2025 Budget as it retreats from the high street. The Treasury pushed back within days, noting that duty rates for betting premises had not changed. Paddy Power has already shut dozens of shops and William Hill's owner is planning more. The story has hardened into a single line: tax, National Insurance and wage inflation are killing the betting shop.

One operator is doing the opposite. Jenningsbet, the family firm founded in 1961 and today the UK's largest independent bookmaker, has spent five years opening premises while the corporates close them, and this year it expects to pass £100 million in gross gaming yield. Its chief executive, Greg Knight, who owns the business outright and sits on the Betting and Gaming Council's executive committee, is one of the few senior figures in the sector willing to say the industry is blaming the wrong thing.

Knight does not dispute that tax is a threat; he calls any further rise a "hammer blow". But his argument, set out in the exchange below, is that the larger and far less examined cost is media rights: the price of putting live racing and its data on a shop's screens, which he says has climbed from around £40,000 a shop five years ago to roughly £70,000 today. That bill rises whether or not the Chancellor touches duty, and it has pushed more of his shops into showing racing at a loss than at any point he can remember.

The sharper edge of his case is aimed at racing itself. Every shop that closes shrinks the levy, the media-rights base and the sponsorship pot the sport depends on, and Betfred's closures alone are expected to cost British racing about £4 million a year. Knight's verdict is blunt: the commercial arm is cannibalising its own funding, and he is prepared to "go dark", refusing to carry racing at the next renewal, to force the point. Coming from the one operator still betting on the high street, that is a warning worth reading closely.

We put 18 questions to Knight, on the Treasury row, media rights, racing, his cost base, regulation and where the estate finally settles. His answers are reproduced in full below, edited only for spelling and punctuation.

On the Treasury Row

Betfred blames Remote Gaming Duty and National Insurance for its closures. The Treasury denies responsibility. You've said online taxes don't close profitable shops. Is Betfred's framing wrong, or is it just incomplete?

Maybe I'm simplifying things but my experience tells me retail tax rises shut retail units not online ones. If a shop makes money, it makes money.

You sit on the Betting and Gaming Council's executive committee, and the BGC's public position has leaned heavily on the tax argument. How does your view land in that room?

Those are my own views and do not reflect the overall BGC position. Where my views do align with the BGC is that any further tax rises would be a hammer blow for the UK gambling sector and would further erode the legal licensed market and boost the black market.

On Media Rights, the Central Claim

You say media rights increases dwarf every tax rise put together. Can you put numbers on that for Jenningsbet: what does live racing content and data cost per shop per week now, versus three years ago, and what share of a typical shop's cost base does it represent?

The cost varies from shop to shop but a typical shop would have been paying circa £40,000 pa inclusive of VAT 5 years ago, 3 years ago that had risen to £50,000 pa. Now we are looking at a staggering £70,000 pa. Tell me how that is sustainable?

You describe the SIS and TRP renegotiations as take-it-or-leave-it. What does that actually look like from the other side of the table, and what leverage, if any, does an independent with 200 shops have that a five-shop operator doesn't?

Every media rights contract contains a "whole estate" clause which means that we cannot cherry pick which shops receive the service. It's every shop or none at all. Some shops don't generate enough horse racing revenue to justify the service so in those shops we are broadcasting horseracing at a loss. The higher the cost the more shops fall into this category. We are at a point where more shops are broadcasting horseracing at a loss than ever before. Being an independent does not give us any more flexibility or leverage than corporate operators.

Betfred and William Hill went dark rather than sign, then signed anyway. You called it a brave stance. Was it ever winnable, and would Jenningsbet ever go dark?

I think that the next round of contract negotiations will see a much harder stance from the land based sector. I'm quite prepared to go dark next time around. It is totally unsustainable.

You've described a vicious loop: fewer shops, higher cost per shop, more closures. Where does that end? Give us your number for the natural level of the UK estate, and the year it settles.

I think at current cost levels we could still see another 500 closures in 2027. I think it will plateau at around 4,500 shops. If we get a significant rise in MGD though we are talking about a bloodbath, which means of course that the UK Horseracing would be in a world of pain.

On Racing

You sponsor the Midlands Grand National, the Northumberland Plate and seven greyhound stadia, while arguing racing has become a loss leader in most shops. How do you square the two?

We sponsor these events because it talks to our demographic and customer base, that said if media rights go any higher we would not be renewing our sponsorship contracts.

A shrinking estate shrinks the levy base, which hurts the sport that sets the media rights price. Is racing's commercial arm cannibalising its own funding, and does anyone in the sport accept that yet?

It's a very good way of putting it, yes the commercial arm is cannibalising its own funding. The Racing Industry keeps telling bookmakers that we shouldn't conflate media rights costs with the Levy. Well I do conflate the two! To me it is the overall cost of putting Horseracing in my shops. Racing needs to be asking why the profits that the media rights companies make doesn't filter down to Racing.

If media rights costs stay on their current trajectory, what does the content mix in a Jenningsbet shop look like in 2030?

It cannot continue on its current trajectory. I cannot believe they would be that short sighted. If either RMG or TRP propose to raise prices in 2028 then I would only sign up to 1 service. Not both.

On the Cost Base and the Estate

Employment costs came second on your list of five, with "nuff said" attached. With approaching 1,000 staff, what did the National Insurance change cost you in cash terms, and what did you cut or delay to absorb it?

The NI rise cost us circa £2m. There was very little we could do to mitigate.

You've opened more new locations in five years than any other UK bookmaker while others announce 350 closures in three months. What are you seeing in a site that Betfred and William Hill aren't, and have you taken on any of their surrendered leases?

With a smaller national footprint than the Corporates we are still able to identify locations where we are not represented that have sufficient footfall to make a viable business. The large bookmakers are probably represented in those areas so they have less scope for expansion. They also have a larger tail end because by nature they have more secondary "off pitch" legacy locations. Just because we have a view that shops in good locations will still thrive it doesn't mean we don't have a tail end ourselves, we do.

On Regulation

The government has scrapped "aim to permit" for betting shops and AGCs, with a six-week consultation before a 2027 start. What does that do to your opening pipeline, and which of your recent sites would have failed under the new test?

I'm not sure how many shops would have failed the test. It will severely curtail our ability to expand organically but conversely it will add value to our estate.

Betting shops were absorbed into the "dodgy businesses" line alongside vape shops and mini-marts, despite not featuring in the investigation that triggered the crackdown. How much of retail's problem is now political rather than commercial?

We do have a political problem. There is a well funded anti gambling lobby which seems to have the ear of the present Govt. That has to be a worry.

On the Long View

Where do the customers of a closed shop go? How much of that cash-preferring, anonymous-wagering volume do you think stays inside the licensed market?

Some migrate to other betting shops nearby but the licensed market loses customers with every shop closure and therefore the Treasury loses tax revenue.

You've heard the demographic argument for 31 years and say people move into the bracket rather than disappearing from it. What evidence do you have from your own estate, for example the age profile of new account holders or first-time customers, that this is still holding in 2026?

Obviously we don't have account holders so collecting that data is harder in a retail setting but we do in house surveys etc which point towards our age profiles staying fairly static.

You've said the cure for a bad betting shop is not closing it. What does turning one round actually cost, and how many have you rescued that another operator would have shut?

That's not quite correct. There are betting shops which are way beyond saving. Those in poor locations cannot be saved. You cannot flog a dead horse, however some shops are loss making because of a lack of investment and care. Customers vote with their feet and if a shop is shoddy and unwelcoming it will lose market share. Those are the sort of shops we can turn around by investing in light and bright spaces with the latest tech and motivated staff.

You built to 50 shops, sold to Corals in 2006, then restarted into the financial crash. What did selling teach you that shaped how you run the business now, and is there a number that would make you sell again?

I think an important lesson I learned was that nothing lasts for ever and that you need a stable revenue base to survive in tough times. The economic outlook can change very quickly. I was guilty of a certain amount of hubris after selling to Corals and thought we could do no wrong, I expanded too quickly and took too many risks. I learned from those mistakes. As for selling again, you never say never, but right now we are on target to surpass £100m GGY this year and despite the headwinds I am confident about the future with no plans to sell.

If you had one hour with the Chancellor and one hour with the racing authorities, and could only fix one thing in each room, what would you ask for?

I would ask the Chancellor to look at the evidence as far as retail betting was concerned. Higher land based gambling taxes won't result in higher tax revenues, it will be the reverse. If I were sitting with the Racing Authorities I would tell them we pay far too much in media rights and that we need to completely restructure Racing in the UK which ultimately means closing racecourses. We need a more efficient, streamlined racing schedule which does not rely on putting up prices year on year.

Knight's Real Target Is the Racecourse, Not the Treasury

The interview's most consequential move is to relocate the blame. While Betfred, William Hill and much of the Betting and Gaming Council have trained their fire on the Budget, Knight insists the structural threat is a media-rights bill that has risen by roughly three-quarters in five years, from about £40,000 to £70,000 a shop, and that climbs on its own schedule regardless of what the Chancellor does. The distinction matters for policy. A duty the Treasury has frozen for betting premises can be lobbied against in the open, but a commercial contract renewed every few years between operators and the sport's media companies sits outside the political conversation entirely. If Knight is right that content and data now cost a shop more than any single duty line, the debate about retail's survival has been aimed at the wrong department. It also complicates racing's own messaging, because the sport has spent the Budget cycle presenting itself as the bookmaker's ally against the taxman while, on Knight's account, quietly charging the bookmaker more than the taxman does.

The 2028 Renewals Now Look Like the Real Flashpoint

Knight's willingness to "go dark", and his flat statement that he would sign only one of RMG or TRP if either raises prices in 2028, turns the next media-rights round into the fixture to watch. The mechanism he describes is a doom loop: each closure shrinks the number of shops paying for content, which lifts the cost per remaining shop, which tips more shops into loss and closure. The whole-estate clause removes the escape valve, because an operator cannot drop the unprofitable shops from the service while keeping the good ones. Betfred and William Hill tested a hard line at the last renewal and signed anyway, which is a fair measure of how one-sided the leverage has been. But an independent that is still expanding, still profitable and openly rehearsing a walkout is a different negotiating partner from a chain in retreat, and if the sport pushes prices again it may find the buyer least willing to fold is the one it least expected. The figure racing rarely models is the one Knight keeps returning to: how much levy, media-rights and sponsorship income vanishes for good with every shop that goes dark permanently.

"Fewer, Better Shops" Is a Thesis, Not a Guarantee

Set against the obituaries, Knight offers a genuinely different reading of retail: not a dying format but a consolidating one, settling at perhaps 4,500 better-invested shops that take a larger share of a smaller market. His own numbers lend it weight, with an estate approaching 200 shops, close to 1,000 staff and gross gaming yield on course to pass £100 million. It is the strongest available evidence that the high-street bookmaker is not finished, and it rests on a real insight the corporates have been slower to act on, that a shoddy shop loses custom while a bright, well-staffed one can be turned around. The thesis is conditional, though, and Knight names the conditions himself. It holds only if media-rights costs stop climbing and if Machine Games Duty is left alone; a significant rise in MGD, he warns, would mean a "bloodbath" rather than a plateau, and would drag a chunk of racing's own funding down with it. His optimism is real but leveraged, and it depends on two decisions, one commercial and one fiscal, that are not his to make.

For a decade the betting shop's obituary has been written around machine stakes and gambling duty. Knight's warning is that the sharper blade belongs to the sport the shops were built to serve, and that if racing keeps raising the price of its own product, it may not much like who is left in the room to pay for it.