The bookmaker Betfred has reported a jump in profits as gamblers’ losses mounted after the end of coronavirus restrictions.
The gambling company made profits after tax of nearly £20m in the year ending on 25 September 2022, up from just over £5m the year before, according to newly published accounts at Companies House.
Gambling shops were among the last to reopen in the UK during the pandemic, but since then their sales have risen sharply. Betfred’s turnover grew by nearly £200m in the year to 25 September 2022 to reach £723m.
Betfred customers wagered £8.8bn in 2022, a sharp increase on nearly £7bn the year before. However, it remained short of the £10.1bn bet in 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic.
Betfred’s billionaire owners, the Done family, paid themselves a £50.8m dividend in November 2021 as an increase in online gambling helped the firm remain profitable, although the company reported no further dividend payments during 2022.
The Done brothers, Fred and Peter, first worked for their father’s illegal bookmaking business. They grew their gambling empire after opening their first betting shop in Salford in 1967 using winnings from betting on England’s victory in the football World Cup a year earlier.
The brothers’ fortune was worth £1.87bn in May, putting them 93rd on the list of Britain’s richest people, according to the Sunday Times.
The annual accounts showed that Betfred closed 51 shops during the period, leaving it with a network of 1,419 locations. In 2019, the group had 1,578 shops. Betfred said it would continue to review loss-making shops and consider them for closure.
The company paid significantly higher machine-gaming duty of £54m, compared with £31m in the previous year, which was heavily affected by coronavirus restrictions.
Many gambling companies weathered coronavirus restrictions by relying more heavily on online operations. However, online gambling is under stricter scrutiny in Great Britain after the government this year said it would consult on new affordability checks and other measures to reduce the harms from gambling, including gambling addiction. The changes, which have been heavily opposed by the industry, are expected to be brought in by the summer of next year.
Betfred was fined nearly £2.9m in September by Great Britain’s Gambling Commission for failures in safety checks and money-laundering controls, including allowing one customer to lose £70,000 in just 10 hours, a day after they had opened their account. The company said it would review its policies and that it was committed to safe gambling.
