https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46289499
One person - £265m salary.
And how much are the other directors on?
The bookie always wins, and thousands of people and their families are suffering because of them.
Why are we allowing this type of gambling to go unchecked? Baffles me.
Just finished reading that myself. Makes me sick.
Why are we allowing this type of gambling to go unchecked?
They are are making donations to the right people.
Agreed, gambling and especially online gambling needs seriously curbing. There's no justification for it.
I am totally against online betting in any shape or form whatsoever, if you want to make a bet then walk into a betting shop and do it there.
Right..
Thats out of the way.
Now then, she’s a smart and very intuitive Woman who in this world ought to be celebrated for her insight and achievements.
Clearly statistically talented, spotted a marketplace for a product and way back when the internet was a reference base had the foresight to spot potential use other than reading books.
The charities she supports (including Stoke Football club, who by the look of it are indeed a charity) are commendable, obviously I’m going to point out a mere portion of her income goes into charity and I will stick my neck out and say it’s a Tax break of some sort.
Can’t deny the talent though.
Got to give her that.
The salary is nothing to do with me, it’s her company so she’s entitled to pay herself what the heck she likes. But on the face of it it’s “excessive” when the funds come off the back of other people’s missery and often desperation.
I read this and my mouth hit the floor, especially as things are tight for me at the moment and I stupidly buy a scratchcard or lotto ticket praying for the impossible. I've never used a bookmaker though.
In her defence what should she do when her business is so successful, she could double her staffs wages and pay the cleaner £20 an hour but would that effect the local economy negatively? She could leave it in the company? Donate it to charity, but this often gets eaten up by their staff. She could offer her customers better odds.
I think part of the problem is she can't do anything with the money, if she lets up her competitors will happily take the money. A lot of these super rich the money is a product of the thing they enjoy which is work.
I do agree that each town should have one book maker only with no online as said above it causes misery.
Bribery pure and simple - thats how they get away with it.
Bastards
Locating your offices in Gibraltar helps free up money that might not otherwise be available to pay salaries too...
Donate it to charity, but this often gets eaten up by their staff.
Its rare that we get upset about how much people who's work or products might result in ill health or bad habits get paid. People aren't repulsed by the idea of people who market junk food, or porn or tobacco or alcohol or gambling get rich in the process.
Why is it distasteful for people who deliver charitable services to get paid?
Every penny she’s paying herself has come from someone’s misery.the winners aren’t paying her salary, the losers are. And clearly there are a lot of them. Grim.
I was in the casino on Friday night last off, a year since I was last there and posted on here about tbat visit. Theres some desperate ****ers in there waiting for a break. I got lucky, I was out for 8 hours and came home 3 quid up. It would be so easy to be 300 quid down in 30 mins!
Gambling is so easily accessible these days.
Why is it distasteful for people who deliver charitable services to get paid?
Im not really saying it is, but different business generate different feelings. In general I think people donate so they can help people/animals in need not for 6 figure CEO salary. Where when you gamble you are just hope my to win some money.
What do you think the owners of Bet365 should do with the huge profits the company makes through their hard work?
Another example what should Bill Gates have done when his company was generating vast vast sums of money? I don't have an answer perhaps you lot do.
That's the problem I have with it Wrightyson, we could all probably empty our accounts this evening online. It needs to be taken back to a high street based service.
Every penny she’s paying herself has come from someone’s <span class="skimlinks-unlinked">misery.</span>
What utter shite. Not everyone who enjoys a flutter is miserable or spending what they can't afford to lose.
Gambling is so easily accessible these days.
It was only in the news as well about how the number of children addicted to gambling has rocketed the past few years. Bigger problem than smoking, drinking and drugs etc. something needs to be done to tackle the sheer scale of it.
What do you think the owners of Bet365 should do with the huge profits the company makes through their hard work?
Give a lot of it to gambling addiction charities, or families of folk who have lost loved ones to gambling addiction.
Gates didn’t profit from his products bankrupting his customers
What utter shite. Not everyone who enjoys a flutter is miserable or spending what they can’t afford to lose.
Are you happy or sad when you lose a bet?
What do you think the owners of Bet365 should do with the huge profits the company makes through their hard work?
Maybe tweak their odds so that it's less favoured to the company? Anyone any idea what profit they make on every pound bet?
Actually scratch that - make the odds ever suckier and try to persuade people to stop doing it. I have never seen the attraction.
I'm an online gambling winner! Well actually it wasn't gambling, I did matched betting using all the free bet opening offers, bet365 used to be one of the more lucrative ones so I did it several times using different names. Probably made about £1500 over a few weeks and felt good to take them for some free money.
It's easy to see how people get sucked in, the sites are well set up and very easy to use, fortunately I'm incredibly tight and hate losing money so gambling would never be for me.
Argh, not the "charities shouldn't spend money on staff" dickheads again!
I get the dislike of gambling and the companies that facilitate the removal of large amounts of money from vulnerable people. However
Are you happy or sad when you lose a bet?
As long as it's money I can afford to lose, I'm neither. The extra excitement I get from watching an event when I have a stake in it is the value of the bet. Winning the bet is a bonus.
I get more pissed off paying money to watch my team play, only for them to be shit and lose. Even if I do get the 'entertainment' of the game
Why are we allowing this type of gambling to go unchecked? Baffles me.
On the internet its fairly difficult to restrict activities - if you "ban it" in the UK people will go overseas. There is some logic to permitting it, allowing it with some regulation in your back yard and benefiting from the tax. Of course I am sure the industry is also a significant lobby and holds strong political influence too (not necessarily just with the current occupiers of number 10). I certainly wouldn't assume that the betting shop on your local street is not inflicting at least as much misery.
Ignoring the morals of betting for a moment, if you owned a family business which employed 4000 people, turned over billions, and was making very healthy profits - what earnings would you take out of the business?
I think the gambling industry could be better regulated and that it should be unbelievably hard for children to gamble.
However, we need to be realistic and I'm sure it is healthier for society if UK gambling is kept in the UK, rather than people bypassing UK law and punters placing large bets in places like Nigeria .
It was unfair of the BBC to compare her earnings to bosses of shareholder owned companies. Her wages are that of both a very competent CE who has basically created the business and that of a large shareholder/investor who has invested money and grown the business from a very small base.
In her shoes, if you had achieved what she had, what would you do?
Gets CBE for helping communities with problems the gambling companies created and I bet she never paid a penny.
In her shoes, if you had achieved what she had, what would you do?
Kill myself in shame.
Trading in human misery. No better than a drug dealer.
Dont know how she sleeps at night (although I suspect very comfortably).
Worked for ladbrokes for a few years, and it is all about making people gamble more. The amount of money floating about is mental.
I cannot understand how people who make money from it sleep at night. Families ruined, young men killing themselves and absolutely no positive community outcome. But £265M. Sickening and akin to drug dealing.
What utter shite. Not everyone who enjoys a flutter is miserable or spending what they can’t afford to lose.
If you enjoy losing money, you need help. No one regardless of whether they can afford to or not, should actually enjoy losing money. You're either lying to yourself or need psychological help
I'm honestly not sure what I think about gambling. I don't see online as massively different ethically to high street, everyone I know who gambles loses, but they can't see/accept it. The only people I know that enjoy a little flutter stick to the lottery or the odd day at the races. It deeply saddens me that you can fairly accurately predict how deprived an area is from the number of betting shops on the high street. The deregulation of the industry is an utterly shameful mockery of our democracy. At least it's now getting some media attention.
Personally I would far rather see betting restricted to peer to peer, avoiding the profiteering and at least meaning that there was no house to always win. It wouldn't halt the problem but it would restrict the ethical issues, and perhaps make it a touch more difficult, particularly in relation to fixed odds betting terminals and online gambling.
If you enjoy losing money, you need help. No one regardless of whether they can afford to or not, should actually enjoy losing money. You’re either lying to yourself or need psychological help
I don't think you understand the concept of gambling. Of course people do not enjoy losing money, however people *do* enjoy the excitement of gambling. Personally I have rarely used online betting services other than a very occasional bet on the horses (I'd rather do it online than go into a bookmakers' shop). And when I say 'occasional' I mean like about once every two or three years on the Grand National or the Gold Cup.
However, I do enjoying going to the races as it is a social event (even then I only go once a year with free 'family' tickets at York because my mother and father in law are season ticket holders). The excitement of potentially winning a few quid (I rarely bet more than £2 per race) is amazing, but if I go home having lost a few quid and spent a few quid on a couple of beers I am quite happy with the cost versus value of the day.
Obviously the other option would be for people to take responsibility for their own actions and stop wasting money they don't have.
If they have the money and wan't to spend it on gambling, why should they not be allowed to do it?
Though they should be less stupid and not do it on fixed odds betting machines and maybe try something that might actually be really a game of chance.
I say good luck to her, she created a very, very successful business and deserves whatever money she earns. Nobody complains about the amount of money Apple, Dyson or any other company make. They also see no issue with what footballers earn.
She provides a service that people can use or not use, nobody stands in your living room with a gun to your head.
Yes people get addicted but there are plenty who are not addicted and enjoy putting a few quid on the football, races or whatever.
By that reasoning we should ban pubs because of alcoholics and restaurants because of obesity.
You say that online gambling is trading on misery but I won 15 quid last week on betting that Esther McVey would resign. Thats a proper win/win 😀
I cannot understand how people who make money from it sleep at night. Families ruined, young men killing themselves and absolutely no positive community outcome.
Many game apps are designed to encourage spending. People get addicted to these the same way they do with gambling and end up spending all their money there too.
Humans are far weaker willed and more easily lead than we might like to pretend. Put some flashing lights and a big red button and we all flock across
Addiction is that a way of making it sound like people are not just stupid and selfish and they somehow have something wrong with them?
Why is everything someone else's fault these days? Instead of saying poor you you are addicted to gambling, we should be saying stop being a nobber, stop being selfish and take some responsibility.
By that reasoning we should ban pubs because of alcoholics and restaurants because of obesity.
This. We don't ban alcohol because a small percentage of drinkers become addicts.
Gambling is not a normal business. Leaving legality aside drug dealers have equivalent or better moral justification.
What do the "its the responsibility of the gambler" types feel about this from the Grauniad?
Still relaxed about it?
By that reasoning we should ban pubs because of alcoholics and restaurants because of obesity.
This. We don’t ban alcohol because a small percentage of drinkers become addicts.
But online gambling opens up so many more opportunities for gamblers to lose their money. An alcoholic or obese person can't get their fix via the internet (at least not directly).
Just imagine the tax she pays on that lot. Pays for a lot of stuff?
While I think FOBTs should be heavily regulated and gambling TV adverts banned there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the business of gambling if well regulated.
No children are the responsibility of their parents, which is another thing people seem to be forgetting these days. As far as I can see there you need an iTunes account to fund the gambling, so one would assume parents should have some sort of control over the funding of that account.
Again its lets blame someone else rather than saying "What can I do to protect my children"
It's true that we don't ban food/alcohol/tobacco, but we DO put massive restrictions on the form and tone of advertising that can be used (or whether advertising can be used at all), seriously enforce age restrictions, and don't allow coco-pops, vodka and ciggies to be piped into childrens bedrooms without their parents knowledge.
Any other silly comparisons to justify gambling as a business?
What do the “its the responsibility of the gambler” types feel about this from the Grauniad?
Still relaxed about it?
No children are the responsibility of their parents, which is another thing people seem to be forgetting these days. As far as I can see there you need an iTunes account to fund the gambling, so one would assume parents should have some sort of control over the funding of that account.
Again its lets blame someone else rather than saying "What can I do to protect my children"
Edit weird my quoting seems broken
Lovely response: "Its the parents fault"
Unless you are a blind libertarian, you can probably see that society has used many forms of laws and restrictions to protect itself (to a greater or lesser extent) from things that cause significant negative effects (smoking, drinking, drugs and (moreso in the past) gambling).
Its perfectly valid to ask for restrictions on things that cause generally bad effects on society, whether or not they affect certain individuals.
In many ways thats what society is for.
@eat_the_pudding How can a child get access to enough funds for gambling to be a problem?
If we tell someone they have a problem and they are addicted and can't help it we, are basically saying there its beyond their control and they might as not bother.
If we tell them they are an idiot and just need to stop and show some respect for themselves and the people around them, we are telling the truth.
People gamble to try and get out of the hole they have gambled their way into, that's not addiction. It would be better to educate people and explain how things like FOB machines work. Lets face it no one would play a game with me where they gave me £10 and I gave them £8 back if they knew that was the rules.
I think getting the message out "Gambling is a business to take money off you" would be better than pretending they have a medical condition.
But online gambling opens up so many more opportunities for gamblers to lose their money. An alcoholic or obese person can’t get their fix via the internet (at least not directly).
So its the internets fault? Lets ban the internet !
Gambling is not a normal business. Leaving legality aside drug dealers have equivalent or better moral justification.
Good comparison. Because thats another thing people get all preachy and sanctimonious and all 'these people must be protected from themselves' about.
When people talk about drug use, they immediately conjure up an image of some homeless hopeless heroine addict. But this represents a tiny minority of drug users. 99% of drug use though is people going out at weekends, necking pills, snorting coke, smoking weed, whatever, then getting on with their lives completely unaffected.
Gambling is the same. Most people, myself included open their app on a Saturday morning, stick a few quid on the days footy results, watch the footy with a little more interest, then acknowledge that you win some/you lose some (a universal truth)
The people stood feeding their entire wage into a fixed odds betting machine in the bookies are a tiny minority
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Argh, not the “charities shouldn’t spend money on staff” dickheads again!<span class="bbp-reply-post-date">Posted 15 hours ago</span>
Do you always call people whos point of view differs from yours dickheads . Many people , me included would be more willing to give to charity if we knew how much was being swallowed up in " administrative costs"
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Its not difficult to find out.
My wife works for a charity. They get paid peanuts compared to the equivalent jobs in the private sector. She took a huge pay cut to go and work there. Thats typical throughout the whole sector
Hope thats cleared that up for you
Do you always call people whos point of view differs from yours dickheads . Many people , me included would be more willing to give to charity if we knew how much was being swallowed up in ” administrative costs”
http://beta.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-search/?q=cycling
Stick the charity name in there, click on documents, look at the annual report.
Let us know which charity you'll be donating to.
bazzer and binners,
Inconveniently for you, I'm heavily in favour of letting adults make up their own minds (about drugs and anything else that directly harms no-one else).
But the point I (tried to) make with the grauniad article was that the liberalisation of gambling has got to the point where the advertising is becoming pervasive and is being seen by children.
Whether the children have the money to participate is irrelevant if they are being influenced by the advertising from a young age. They are all future customers, as learned and practised by the tobacco and alcohol advertising industries for years.
I'm NOT suggesting that gambling should be banned, and that you should be cruelly and heartlessly deprived of your occasional flutter, but that maybe the restrictions on advertising should either be tightened up or enforced more effectively.
PS If you think a quick chat with their parents will make children immune to pervasive advertising, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.
From listening to the radio yesterday there's no doubt in my mind it needs to start with
1. A total ban on all advertising - start with online and TV then move to all other media
2. An assessment of the gambling-like content and activities in computer games (that may not at any time involve real money) as it's conditioning kids to have a punt which presumably has the potential to create mayhem when they turn 18
I've no issue with gambling remaining as a regulated industry unless it's evident that the points above have zero impact in which case it'll need to more heavily regulated.
I honestly don't really care about the gambling industry, I am more bothered about the slide into protecting people to the point they can't think for themselves. I am not trying to win a battle with you either so I am pleased you are anti the dumbing down of society.
PS If you think a quick chat with their parents will make children immune to pervasive advertising, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.
A quick conversation no, but actually educating them properly would. We are all subject to the forces of marketing and advertising. That's not going away any time soon. So preparing people to deal with it is the way forward, rather than trying to ban things. If you know how the trick works, its not magic anymore is it.
Because Bet365 is private owned, she's also getting away with not disclosing how much of her business comes from China, unlike most of the other gambling firms, who declare this:
I dont have a problem with this. She has made the moiney by being astute and taking the commercial risks. Just becuaes she doesnt have shareholders to pay means there is more for her. Yes she could pay her staff more rather than keep it for herself but her business is no more unsavory than tobacco, and alcohol industries.
A quick conversation no, but actually educating them properly would. We are all subject to the forces of marketing and advertising. That’s not going away any time soon. So preparing people to deal with it is the way forward, rather than trying to ban things. If you know how the trick works, its not magic anymore is it.
@Bazzer your simplistic £8 for £10 argument would probably be enough to deter a large proportion of punters if, in fact, every time they spent a tenner they ended up with 8 quid.
As you well know the 80% return is effectively calculated over the lifetime of the game and the actual payouts per cash amount will vary tremendously, particularly as the cash amount considered gets smaller. Punters are chasing the times when they pay a tenner and walk away with hundreds. That's the lure.
Matt
But online gambling opens up so many more opportunities for gamblers to lose their money. An alcoholic or obese person can’t get their fix via the internet (at least not directly).
And yet we still have drunks and obesity so that just proves that somebody with a gambling addiction is going to carry on gambling even if they have to visit a bookies to do it.
IT would be quite easy to show though that they only got £800 back from the £1000 they have spent this year though 🙂 for the VAST majority of people.
The fact that the house CANNOT lose on FOB machines is different to the fact on other stuff its just UNLIKELY they are going to lose.
I think personally think calling people who lose more than they can afford (your'e safe binners) stupid, rather than addicted, would have better results in stopping it 🙂
If I was in her position, I'd pay myself that much too.
I have morals but nearly 1m a day is nearly 1m a day 😀
I dont have a problem with this. She has made the moiney by being astute and taking the commercial risks. Just becuaes she doesnt have shareholders to pay means there is more for her. Yes she could pay her staff more rather than keep it for herself but her business is no more unsavory than tobacco, and alcohol industries.
This.
100% this.
The fact that the house CANNOT lose on FOB machines is different to the fact on other stuff its just UNLIKELY they are going to lose.
In the long term, the house doesn't lose on any form of gambling, or there wouldn't be many bookies around. Odds are calculated very carefully to ensure the house has a net return. FOBs have actually been used for money laundering, because criminals know that if they put enough money through the machine, they get a guaranteed return (90 to 97%, depending on the game you are playing).
If you play roulette on an FOB or in a casino, the odds are pretty much exactly the same. The problem with FOBs is that they are designed to encourage people to put money in as fast as possible, so someone with a problem is going to lose a bigger total sum.
If I was in her position, I’d pay myself that much too.
I have morals but nearly 1m a day is nearly 1m a day 😀
Well, there is this I suppose.
Edit- and I think this is why we need regulation really!
@kcr obviously the odds are calculated to make it very very likely the house will win. However real roulette is a game of chance though extremely unlikely it is possible for the house to lose. Statistically over time they won't however it is possible.
FOB machines on the other hand don't payout until they have taken some money, the software is designed so its never behind. They can never lose money.
No one has to gamble, people can just do something else instead. The fact this woman has been successful because a lot of people enjoy gambling and a few people have gambled themselves into a hole and are daft enough to think the only way out is more gambling, makes her just cleverer than the people gambling 🙂
I don't really think you've grasped the nature of addiction.
Meanwhile, many of you are overlooking an important point: while it's a relatively small number of people ploughing hundreds of quid into the bookies every week compared to the number of people that will gamble over the course of a year, those core users are responsible for a huuuuuge proportion of their profit. The gambling industry could never survive on the money it makes from "normal" well-adjusted gamblers that do it for fun.
This isn't like saying all pubs should close because some people are alcoholics. It's like saying pubs shouldn't be allowed to target alcoholics in selling increasingly strong alcohol 24 hours a day.
Statistically over time they won’t however it is possible.
So it's not possible, but it is possible?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/d80d46eb-253d-4b99-ba60-caca6858d757
Addiction comes in many forms and we are not strong willed by and large. We all have a vice or a crutch be it alcohol, games, religion to help us get through. Some people will always take it too far.
@kcr I should have said statistically unlikely, however unlikely it is, it is actually possible for someone to bet on roulette every day of their life and never lose.
That's not the case on a FOB it maintains the return on the amount of money put into it.
Kill the adverts for gambling, we've done it for fags and booze. This is a no brainer, surely. Less exposure for kids = less take up as adults.
Overpaid CEO, couldn't really give a monkeys.
A good reason to ban snake oil bike parts.
Spending £500 on jockey wheels must subject so many to absolute misery.
http://www.wiggle.co.uk/ceramicspeed-shimano-9100-oversize-pulley-wheel-system-coated/
My 2p. Gambling shouldn’t be banned, nor should alcohol, nor should tobacco. And it would probably be better if (some) of the currently illegal drugs were legalised. They should, however, all be heavily regulated and taxed, and the advertising controlled. Gambling is probably at the most lax end of the scale and I’d see it as a priority to impose much heavier regulation and taxes ASAP esp on online gambling.
I have no problem with her being rich, good luck to her, it is simply a fact of the structural problems the government has allowed to develop.
Errr, and my gambling is limited to putting 2p’s in the machines at the seaside! I often win and end up putting it all back in so I don’t have to walk round with hundreds of 2p pieces!!!
If I was in her position, I’d pay myself that much too.
I have morals but nearly 1m a day is nearly 1m a day 😀
Well, when you put it that way it’s certainly a more tangible amount to realise.
Gambling is probably at the most lax end of the scale and I’d see it as a priority to impose much heavier regulation and taxes ASAP esp on online gambling.
Interesting that online gambling is an area where a business with no physical or legal presence in the UK is still required to pay UK tax.
"Remote Gaming Duty is charged at the rate of 15% of a gaming provider’s profits from remote gaming with UK persons." (gov.uk)
Ok, 15% isn't very high, but I imagine policing it can be quiet difficult.
I do not like gambling but I think the old men who go to the betting shop and gamble on horses probably enjoy it.
Online gambling on the other hand is dangerous with many kids addicted to it as well. The news quoted that in the there is 22000 people under 16 who are addicted to gambling.
If I were in her shoes, I'd empty out the piss that someone had put in them
Kill the adverts for gambling,
I am not sure what channel it is but at the local gym some of the tvs has a sports channel on. Adverts seem pretty much back to back gambling ones for one site or another.
Online gambling on the other hand
As I understand it (never really got gambling fortunately so am far from an expert) there is a serious problem with the local betting shops and FOBT machines which seem horrendous at exploiting addictive personalities.
Since politicians often get a hard time its worth praising Tracey Crouch for her determination on pushing action against them through and her principles in resigning (lets skip over the other politicians who forced her into it).
Like all vices some people will be able to handle it and get enjoyment out of it in return for their expenditure. A small amount of people may even profit from it. However, as with other vices there will be a dark aspect and that will spill over to affect the rest of us through crime or other social problems.
How much of that £265M has come from benefits or the proceeds of selling stolen goods and how much has come from legitimate and honest earnings? We will never know.
She is obviously a very astute business woman, no one can deny that and of that part I am jealous. I would like just a fraction of her success for my own business.