Fred Done moves property group to Jersey ahead of tax change

Fred Done moved his property group to Jersey in March and placed ultimate ownership in a trust fewer than two weeks before the U.K. ended inheritance tax relief for family-owned businesses. The restructuring affects his property interests and not the Betfred gambling business.

Fred and his brother Peter paid £400 million in taxes last year, roughly half of which was gambling duty, making them the largest individual U.K. taxpayers in 2025. Lawyers familiar with the restructuring say placing the property group under a Jersey trust could reduce future inheritance tax bills by tens of millions of pounds.

The change comes as the U.K. has increased taxes on online gambling. Remote Gaming Duty on online casino games rose from 21% to 40% from April 2026. The duty on online sports betting will increase from 15% to 25% from April 2027. The Treasury projects those duty changes will raise more than £1 billion a year by 2031. Analysts and operators say higher duties cut margins on digital products and can affect overall profitability.

Large operators have shifted commercial and marketing functions to lower-tax jurisdictions in recent years. In late 2025, Sky Bet created a Malta-based company and moved some commercial and marketing roles there. An analysis estimated that the change could reduce Sky Bet’s U.K. tax bill by about £55 million a year, largely due to different VAT treatment of marketing spending and lower U.K. corporation tax exposure for certain roles. The operator has said the relocation was for operational reasons and that U.K. corporation tax will continue to be paid on profits. Critics asked parliamentary committees to examine the arrangements and an analyst described parts of the VAT setup as improper; that characterization was disputed by the operator.

Operators can legally base commercial activities in jurisdictions such as Malta, Gibraltar or Jersey while keeping a consumer-facing presence in Britain. At the scale of large firms, marketing budgets in the tens or hundreds of millions of pounds mean that small percentage differences in VAT or corporation tax treatment translate into substantial sums.

Fred Done has warned that higher taxes on U.K.-facing operations will push customers toward offshore, unregulated sites and cautioned that offshore bookmakers take bets without contributing to U.K. tax revenues. Betfred chief executive Joanne Whittaker described herself as “stupid and naive” to expect high street betting shops would be insulated from tax rises and said some officials in the Treasury did not understand the business.

Betfred operates about 1,273 U.K. betting shops. The U.K. retail betting sector has declined from nearly 10,000 shops in 2017 to about 6,668 today. Done has said around 300 Betfred shops were loss-making before the budget and warned that sustained pressure on online margins could make some retail operations unviable, with wider job losses possible across the sector.

Regulators and politicians face pressure to clarify tax rules as companies adapt corporate structures in response to higher duties and changing VAT treatment.