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The DCMS has said she brings extensive experience from her long-standing career in public protection and financial crime prevention.
Her previous leadership roles include chairing the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), the Bar Standards Board and acting as a lay member of the General Medical Council.
Evans also served as a non-executive director of the Serious Fraud Office. She led the steering group responsible for a voluntary industry code that reimburses victims of authorised push payment (APP) scams, introduced in 2018.
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Betfred currently operates approximately 1,094 retail shops across the UK. Done highlighted the concrete risks of Machine Gaming Duty – taxes on gambling machines – doubling from 20% to 40%, a move reportedly under consideration by Chancellor John Healey ahead of the Autumn Budget.
Betfred’s retail business still heavily depends on fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs) and in-shop gambling. Despite the maximum stake limit being cut to £2 in 2019, FOBTs account for roughly half of Betfred’s shop profits. Done emphasised that without these machines, retail betting wass “impossible”.
According to Done, such a tax rise would lead Betfred to close 495 of its shops within a year, resulting in the loss of 2,575 jobs and roughly £67 million in foregone tax revenue for the Exchequer.
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“Operators do pay, yes, but they pay whatever suits them,” they said. “In other words, we effectively pay what benefits us. All the while, the state has no means of monitoring its regulatory policies.”
In response to these issues, earlier this year the DRC Ministry of Finance outlined plans for a new gambling monitoring platform to enhance its supervision of the sector.
The DRC government is also developing a new legal framework for the gambling industry, designed to modernise existing rules and strengthen oversight of tax collection.
