Bookie profit hits £10m

BOOKMAKER Fred Done is celebrated among punters for paying out early on Manchester United winning the Premiership - only for Arsenal to pip the Reds to the title.

The blunder, in 1998, cost Done hundreds of thousands of pounds.

But accounts just filed at Companies House shows that Done Brothers, which claims to be the world's largest independent bookmaker, is back on a winning streak.

Pre- tax profits surged to £10.4m in the year to March 2004, up from £1.03m the previous year, while sales jumped from £379m to £553m. The Manchester company said that it had enjoyed 'an excellent year's trading,' helped by fixedodds betting terminals that have also boosted profits of rival bookmakers Stanley Leisure and William Hill.

Fred Done, 61, also struck lucky, nearly doubling his salary to £2m last year.

He grew up on a tough Salford estate with his brother, Peter, now 57 and co-owner of the business.

They used to run errands for their father, an illegal bookmaker.

Done Brothers has undergone a hefty expansion programme. It has 450 shops across Britain, with plans to increase to 800 by 2008. Sites have been rebranded as BetFred, a phone betting operation has been expanded and an online business was launched last month.

But Fred Done has no plans to float the company on the stock market. 'I can't stand committees,' he once said.

'I would far rather be a dictatorship and run a proper business.'