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Fred Done, the 83-year-old founder of Betfred and Britain’s highest-paying taxpayer this year, has issued a stark warning about the impact of further tax increases on the gambling industry.
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.
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The move came shortly after the Senate declined to advance the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act. The procedural vote on September 15 rejected it with 49-50, not meeting the 60 votes required to move forward.
The CFTC’s move gives the agency a chance to pursue parts of a crypto market framework under its existing authority, rather than waiting for Congress to resolve the broader legislative debate.
CFTC Chairman Michael Selig signaled that possibility back in August. The agency was considering how its existing powers could be used to create a dedicated market structure for digital assets that are standard, he said.
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As well as a statewide exclusion register, the package also set out to reduce the number of poker machines from the current figure of 87,000 across 2,100 clubs and hotels.
The government said it aims to achieve this by increasing the forfeiture rate when gaming machine entitlements are traded from one in three to one in two.
The NSW government initiated its first formal review of ClubGRANTS in over a decade after taking office in 2023. Although the final report was submitted in January 2025, it has yet to be released publicly.
