Betfred

Betfred is a UK-based bookmaker named after its characterful Northern England frontman and founder Fred Done. It was first established as a single shop in Ordsall, Salford, in 1967. Its turnover is over £1.5 billion, a nearly threefold rise since 2003's £550 million. The company has more than 700 UK betting shops. It claims to be both the world's biggest privately owned betting company, and the UK's biggest privately owned retail outlets.

It sponsors a number of sporting events, including the Betfred Premier League in snooker, and the Betfred Mile and Betfred Gold Cup in horse racing. Betfred has been nominated as the official bookmaker for the new, revamped Wembley Stadium.

Their head office is Birchwood Warrington in the old spectrum arena. The managing director is John Haddock who first started with the company as a Regional Manager. They are now in the process of moving their telephone betting functions to Gibraltar under the name Petfre - the first three letters of the names of the co-founders, Peter and Fred.

Fred Done lives in a very plush mansion known as the Avery in Worsley, Manchester and he is currently in the process of moving some of his operations to Gibraltar, including the servers used to generate the random numbers for the online casino.

Recently, Betfred have opened their 700th shop and had a massive party in Manchester to celebrate this and aims to have 800 open by then end of 2009. The company sponsors a number of sportsmen and women, including darts player Peter ‘One Dart’ Manley.

In recent years, the company expanded its online presence, with a website with sports betting, poker room and a Playtech-powered casino.

They are the official betting partner for Manchester United F.C.