Betting shops were legalised in 1961 in Britain. Betting on football was on its 'fixed odds' coupon. These coupons didnt have individual odds odds for each team but prices for selecting so many homes, aways or draws and were extremly popular. English football was hit with match fixing scandals in the mid 60's and the fixed odds coupon was held partially to blame. Then the Chancellor put up the betting tax on football coupons from 7% to 25% and this almost completely wiped out the fixed odds coupons. some say the pools companies put the pressure on the chancellor to up the taxes. Turnover in 1963 was £65 million for the fixed odds and only £5m in 1968.
Sounds bad doesnt it? It got even worse when Denis Healy and his eyebrows put the tax on football betting up to 42% in 1972
This was effectively the end of betting on football in britain.
In 1974 a Scottish Bookmakers called Queens Bookmakers brought out a coupon with individual match odds for each game. The claimed that their coupon had individual odds on it and not fixed odds so should be subject to just the standard 7% betting tax. This was all invented by John MacFarlane who went onto work with the Football Licensing company who were responsible for charging bookmakers the rights to bet on football. these people were also responsible for the minimum of trebles only rule (min 5-fold if home included) We were allowed singles on live televised matches but we wanted more (or less)
Surrey Sports (now
Skybet) threw caution to the wind and announced in Jan 2001 that it would allow singles on all Premiership matches. More bookmakers followed (Coral the 1st of the big three) and it lead to the licening board scrapping the trebles+ rule in July 2002.
We know the rest.
