An Extensive History of Betfred.com

Starting off as a single betting shop in the 1960s, Betfred
has grown significantly over the past fifty years, as they now
have more than 1,350 betting shops and over 10,000 employees
worldwide. Betfred is one of the fastest growing online betting
shops in the United Kingdom, especially when it comes to British
horse racing.

This is probably partially due to the fact that they are
known for having special bonuses and promotions that allure new
customers to try out their site and for their innovative ideas
when it comes to social media. If you want to know more about
the history of Betfred and how their company has expanded over
time, then please take the time to read through this article.

Fred & Peter Done

Fred Done, the man who is ultimately responsible for the
development of Betfred, was born in Salford, England in 1943.
Done’s interest in bookmaking started at a very young age when
his father, who was a part time bookmaker, had him go to the
local bars and factories to collect football bets for him.

After high school, Done became Ernie Peters’ assistant, as he
was the most popular bookmaker in the city and Done wanted to
learn from the best. Done worked side by side with Ernie for
almost nine years before he decided that he was ready to set up
his own bookmaking business.

Fred needed help to get his business off the ground, so he
recruited his brother, Peter, to help him accumulate the
necessary funds to make this shop a reality; he needed a little
over $6,000. By the middle of 1967, they were ready to open up
the first Betfred betting shop, which they strategically placed
in the city they were born in: Salford, England. Most of their
starting capital came from a bet that Done had placed in favor
of England winning the World Cup that year.

Getting Their Feet off the Ground

Now that we know a little more about the founders of Betfred,
we can dig a little deeper into the reasons why Betfred become
so popular over the next several years. Done made his shop stand
out among the other shops in England at the time, as he treated
it as a formal business, always calling his customers “sir” and
served complimentary drinks to them.

His hospitality helped Betfred expand in numbers but it also
set a standard for betting shops in the future. By 1997, Betfred
had over 100 betting shops across Europe and in less than three
years, their number of shops nearly doubled. Done made sure that
even as the company expanded that they still focused on what was
most important: customer service.

Betfred was the first betting shop to pay their customers
before the results of a competition were officially announced.
In March 1998, Betfred paid all of their customers who had bet
that Manchester United would win the Premier League prior to the
game’s conclusion. This was Fred Done’s favorite team and he had
confidence that they would win, which they subsequently did by
one measly goal.

Continuing to Expand (Betfred.com is Born)

As the years went by, Betfred continued to expand, reaching
over 500 betting shops by March 2005. In the meanwhile, Done saw
a huge potential for growth in the online gambling market. He
hired a group of professionals to develop Betfred.com, which all
of his loyal customers who regularly came into his shops were
excited to try out when it was officially launched in 2004.

Right from the start, Betfred has been dedicated to making
sure that its customers are gambling responsibly and that’s why
they posted this to their website,

“Our customer
service teams are trained to deal with all aspects of
responsible gambling and the following advice may be of
interest. We can help you stay in control by setting deposit
limits on your account either daily weekly or monthly. Please
contact our customer service team to arrange a limit that suits
you.”

With this they included a list of
precautious one can take in order to prevent a gambling problem
from developing.

Betfred.com offers anything you could ever need including an
online casino including slot games, live casino games, in-play
sports betting, bingo, poker, and much more. They also offer a
live help feature that provides their customers with assistance
24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days of the year. Players
can rest assured that any questions they have will be answered
in a timely manner as Betfred makes that one of their top
priorities.

One aspect to their site that was very unique is the Goals
Galore Bonus coupon that they publish each week. This gives
players an opportunity to pick which teams they think will score
at no cost to them. According to a 2010 article from The
Guardian,

“Betfred remains an innovative business,
as demonstrated by the recent introduction of the highly popular
‘goals galore’ coupon, where punters have to choose five games
where they think both teams will score.”

Two years after the Betfred website was launched, Betfred
expanded into a mobile version of their site, giving players the
opportunity to access their site anywhere on the go. Players use
the same bankroll and are offered all of the same bonuses and
promotion as they would if they were on their website.

Another way Betfred expanded was through purchasing The Tote
in 2011, acquiring all of its 517 shops in the process, for just
over $400 million. This expansion into the racing industry has
proven to be very successful for Betfred.com, as it has
attracted a completely new kind of sports bettors to their site.
The Tote has actually been up for sale since the late 1990s, but
it wasn’t until Betfred decided to significantly increase their
initial offers that The Tote’s owners finally decided to accept
them.

Relying on Social Media

Betfred can now be found on almost every social media website
you can think of including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube,
LinkedIn, Google Plus, and Twitter. Betfred actually has several
different twitter accounts that focus on certain aspects of
their site such as a page for bingo players and a page for
golfing fans. They update players with the latest scoop on
what’s going on in the gambling industry while also notifying
you of special promotions that are going on at the time.

Betfred.com received the Best Innovation in Social Marketing
Award at E-Gaming Review’s Operator Innovation Awards ceremony
in 2013. Betfred.com was recognized for their dedication to
social media to allure new customers to their site.

Sponsorships & Charities

Betfred is one of the main sponsors of the Sheffield and
Kinsley Greyhound Stadium, Nottingham Greyhound Stadium, and the
Owenton Stadium. They also sponsored the World Snooker
Championship for four tournaments between 2009 and 2012.
Although choosing to take a few years off from sponsoring them,
Betfred decided to support them once again in 2015. Details on
that partnership are provided for you in the section below.

Betfred’s official charity is The Injured Jockeys
Fund’s “Jack Berry House.” The sole purpose of
this foundation is to raise enough money to open a
state-of-the-art rehabilitation facility for injured jockeys
that will provide them with any medical services they need.

This rehabilitation center will have a gym filled with the
equipment needed for traditional physical therapy and a swimming
pool for hydro-therapy. They will hire specialists to run these
facilities and provide training programs for any current or
aspiring jockeys that want to learn more information about
proper nutrition, injury management, sports psychology, and
other subjects that will help prevent serious injuries from
occurring in the future.

Betfred has also donated to several other local and global
corporations including the Harley Slack Fund, the Killing Cancer
foundation, Manchester Children’s Hospital, Northern Racing
College, and the Retired Greyhound Trust to name a few.

Betfred in Recent News

In 2014, Betfred announced that they were partnering up with
the Snooker’s World Championship, which will be renamed Betfred
World Snooker Championship until at least 2017. This competition
always runs from the end of April to the beginning of May at the
famous Crucible Theatre in Sheffield with over $460,000 going to
the first place winner. The company expects that this esteemed
event is going to bring them much needed publicity, as this
event generally reaches over 300 million viewers across eighty
different countries.

Betfred has recently been recognized in the media for their
Summer Sizzler bonus offer that’s new to their website. During
the entire summer, they’re offering various deals that will blow
players away on all of the hottest events coming soon this
summer including the Ashes, the British Grand Prix Royal Ascot,
and the US Open.

Players are also going crazy for the opportunity to win a
weekend for two to Dublin whenever they play the Irish Lotto on
the site during the month of July. It’s very rare that you hear
of an online casino giving away luxurious trips as prizes, but
it’s something that Betfred has really focused on in these past
couple years. We certainly look forward to watching them expand
in the future and we can’t wait to see what innovative ideas
they come out with next.