Bookies refuse to lay in bed of own making

HAVE a glance at this e-mail that I, along with many others, received from William Hill some days ago.

According to the company, David Yu’s first interview as chief executive of the betting exchange, Betfair, has revealed that his firm has a serious identity crisis.

Yu, they say, claims that Betfair is a bookmaker. According to William Hill: “Up to now that is an assertion that his company has angrily refuted, claiming instead to be just a simple technology platform. On that basis it has avoided paying around three times less in tax and levy than traditional UK bookmakers — like William Hill.