Betfred Founder Predicts No UK Betting Shops by 2030 if Machine Game Duty Doubles
Betfred founder Fred Done warns doubling Machine Game Duty to 40% would close 495 shops in year one, cut 2,575 jobs and forfeit £67m in tax revenue, predicting no UK betting shops left by 2030. The alert precedes the 28 October Autumn Budget amid ongoing retail contraction and prior tax rises. Similar warnings have preceded actual closures at Betfred, Paddy Power and William Hill.
SCCG Take — Policymakers risk accelerating the retail sector’s terminal decline for marginal revenue gains. Operators should model cumulative tax and cost impacts now to determine viable shop counts post-Budget.
Fred Done, the 83-year-old founder of Betfred, has warned that a proposed doubling of Machine Game Duty from 20 per cent to 40 per cent would force the closure of 495 Betfred shops in the first year alone. The move would eliminate 2,575 jobs and result in £67m of lost tax revenue for the Treasury.
Done delivered the assessment in an interview with the Financial Times, as reported by Focus Gaming News. Betfred announced the closure of 132 betting shops in August. Betfred operated around 1,200 locations in the UK. Fixed-odds betting terminals still generate half of each shop’s profits despite the £2 stake limit introduced in 2019. Without them, Done said, retail betting was impossible.
“I believe that by 2030 we will have no betting shops. The high street will be dead. We’ve already worked it out that with the increases in taxes and salaries and other wages it won’t be worth operating,” he said.
Done noted the British gross gambling yield reached £17.5bn in 2025/26 and highlighted that his family paid £400m in taxes last year. He questioned how much broader his shoulders must become to meet further demands. The comments push back against Treasury Select Committee chair Dame Meg Hillier, who has called similar industry warnings scaremongering. Betfred’s sponsorship of the five classic horse races, including the Epsom Derby, is now under review because of fiscal uncertainty. The company has already withdrawn from rugby league sponsorship.
Cumulative Pressure on Retail Operations
The warnings arrive as the Treasury reviews gambling taxes ahead of Chancellor John Healey’s Autumn Budget on 28 October. Healey seeks additional revenue without raising income tax, National Insurance or VAT rates. Betfred issued comparable alerts a year ago when the government announced a rise in Remote Gaming Duty to 40 per cent from April 2026 and a rise in General Betting Duty for online bets except on horseracing from April 2027. The retail sector has contracted for years as customers migrate online.
Weighing Short-Term Revenue Against Sector Viability
Further duty increases risk compounding existing closures across operators. Flutter plans to close up to 100 Paddy Power shops in the UK and Ireland by year-end, affecting 400 jobs. Evoke intends to shutter up to 200 William Hill locations, with up to 1,500 employees impacted. Any acceleration of high-street decline could also harm linked industries such as horse racing. The Treasury must assess whether added revenue offsets the permanent contraction of licensed retail premises and the associated job and tax base losses.
Reporting: Focus Gaming News
Generated by SCCG’s automated editorial system from published source reporting. SCCG Management holds editorial responsibility.
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