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In an interview with the Financial Times over the weekend, Done cautioned that additional tax hikes could result in widespread betting shop closures, harm related sectors such as horse racing and accelerate the decline of the high street.
Betfred currently operates approximately 1,094 retail shops across the UK. Done highlighted the concrete risks of Machine Gaming Duty – taxes on gambling machines – doubling from 20% to 40%, a move reportedly under consideration by Chancellor John Healey ahead of the Autumn Budget.
Betfred’s retail business still heavily depends on fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs) and in-shop gambling. Despite the maximum stake limit being cut to £2 in 2019, FOBTs account for roughly half of Betfred’s shop profits. Done emphasised that without these machines, retail betting wass “impossible”.
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Entain sits somewhere between the two models. It has significant international scale and a valuable stake in BetMGM, but also more debt and greater exposure to UK taxation, as well as general regulatory turbulance across Europe.
The four analysts arrive at much the same broad conclusion, albeit by different routes.
For Birkin, the share-price decline has gone well beyond the deterioration in earnings expectations. Fantini sees the industry’s great growth phase as largely behind it. Beynon’s focus is on what the market can see today: earnings and cash flow, rather than promises of future sportsbook growth. And for Robinson, the weakness is no longer simply a matter of valuation. It is increasingly showing up in the fundamentals themselves.
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The initiative brings together stakeholders such as responsible gaming organisations, researchers and treatment specialists.
It is said to mark a “significant step forward” in addressing gambling-related harm across the continent, facilitating relationships between representatives from a number of countries both inside and outside Africa.
The ARGN’s work will focus on four key strategic priorities: