The brothers who own bookmaker Betfred are making millions from a business that treats public sector staff for health problems including gambling addiction, the U.K. Guardian disclosed.
Billionaires Fred and Peter Done also own Health Assured, which holds dozens of government contracts to provide health and well-being programs. Its taxpayer-funded clients include multiple National Health Service (NHS) trusts that also treat gambling addicts, as well as members of Parliament employees, some of whom campaign for tighter restrictions on gambling.
The Done brothers have taken £5.2 million (US$6.8 million) in dividends from the business in the past three years. They have also donated £375,000 to the conservative Tory party since 2016.
MPs on both sides have railed against the arrangement, while the shadow health secretary, Jon Ashworth, said the fact that the Dones are profiting from betting as well as from gambling addiction treatment showed an “unacceptable conflict of interest.”
Analysis reveals that Health Assured holds at least £2.5 million in government contracts with public sector organizations. The true figure is likely to be much higher, because some contracts go to multiple firms and are not itemized to show which company earned what. The contracts mean that Health Assured’s services are potentially used by tens of thousands of government employees, particularly in the NHS.
Claire Murdoch, NHS mental health chief, recently wrote to gambling firms including Betfred urging them to improve their practices to ensure greater player protections. “The example of gambling companies providing clinics to treat the very people they have stoked…is I think hypocrisy and tokenism,” Murdoch said. She urged problem gamblers to visit one of many new NHS clinics set up to deal with the problem instead.
Her comments came the day after she wrote to gambling firms to say that the health service should not be left to pick up the pieces from tactics bookies use to retain customers with addiction issues.
In the letter, Murdoch said: “As the head of England’s mental health services and a nurse of more than 30 years’ experience, I have seen firsthand the devastating impact on mental well-being of addiction and am concerned that the prevalence of gambling in our society is causing harm.”
According to Health Assured’s website, NHS staff can access counseling for issues such as “reckless behavior,” including excessive drinking or gambling.
Iain Duncan Smith, who co-chairs a cross-party group on gambling, said the process comes off as cynical. “You create a problem, and then you get paid to try and solve it. At every turn, the only thing that matters to gambling companies is to find more ways to make money off the same people.”
While some of Health Assured’s clients have contracts directly with the company, others buy its services via organizations that manage procurement. One of these, NHS Shared Business Services, said it would consider whether it should take into account the business interests of its suppliers’ shareholders.
Betfred is one of the UK’s largest bookmakers, with revenues of £728 million (US$954.8 million) in 2019. It has previously been criticized for its attitude to problem gambling and towards staff. It was censured last year after the Guardian revealed it had introduced games that mimicked fixed-odds betting terminals, a move described as an attempt to bypass a crackdown on the much-criticized machines.
In September, it was accused of underestimating staff holiday pay and then failing to tell employees that they might be owed money, even after it discovered the widespread payment problem. While Health Assured and Betfred are run as entirely separate businesses, they are both majority-owned by the Done brothers.
“Due to the sensitive nature of the employee counseling service that Health Assured offers, we are unable to provide confidential details concerning clients,” Health Assured said. “All public sector contracts we have been awarded have thorough due diligence carried out before they are issued, including looking for conflicts of interest.”
The Done brothers declined to comment.
In related news, the UK Gambling Commission has set out details of a new responsible gambling initiative, in which the agency will work with GVC Holdings, Sky Betting and Gaming, Playtech and SG Gaming in an effort to make gambling safer.
The groups will focus on game and product design, advertising technology and high value customer incentives to gamble. SG Gaming, a division of Scientific Games and Playtech, have agreed to head up work on producing an industry code for product design, while Sky Betting and Gaming will oversee an advertising technology working group. GVC will deal with VIP inducements to gamble.
The proposed industry code for product design will set out how the industry can produce safer products, the techniques to use when designing apps, online games and gaming machine products, the risks associated with products and how they can be mitigated, as well as an explanation of what is not acceptable.
The advertising technology group will address major concerns raised in a recent report by GambleAware, which showed that children, young people and vulnerable adults are being exposed to high levels of online gambling advertisements.
