Betfred Reviews

A strange, joyless, culture that cascades from the MD down. A culture based on suspicion and lack of trust of their employees, an approach which consequently informs all of their employment practices. The managerial style is the one of the mendacious workhouse owner and employment benefits are virtually non-existent. Employees are constantly demoralised, live in fear of their jobs and after a period of time, develop deadness in their eyes as they realise the sort of organisation they have entrusted with their careers. Betfred is predominantly run by old fashioned, ‘stick no carrot’ types who graduated from the vast retail estate. This painfully holds back the Digital side of the operation where fear of change and lack of faith in that area of gaming have left it in a state of stagnation. There is no room for creativity or enterprise to flourish and the retail old guard have installed unqualified retail antiquities to watch over the unwanted Digital baby. The only Digital professionals who flourish are managerial pygmies who tick the boxes of their retail overlords. Big name partners in the Digital space are often staggered at the lack of competence in senior areas of the Betfred Digital Operation. I urge anyone thinking of a career at the Betfred Birchwood Head Office to consider their sanity, dignity and long term prospects before committing to a role in this craven environment.

Totesport was the 5th biggest high street bookie at the time of the Betfred takeover. In just over 4 and a half years Betfred stripped Totesport down to the core, it was passed around between Betfred managers who had no idea what to do with the brand. It was well documented that Fred only wanted the shops when he bought Totesport and you can tell by the demise of every aspect of the company. Totesport never shied away from spending money on sponsorship and one of the key sponsorships they held was the Cheltenham Gold Cup, at Cheltenham there was a huge buzz around the race among Tote staff as we saw it as “our” race. Fast forward a few years and Betfred’s greed has led to the loss of sponsorship. The Tote site has now been turned in to a white label of the Betfred site, which for years has been one of the worst sites in the industry. Then we have Totepool – what was once a fantastic product that was a part of every racing fan’s betting, has now been reduced to a product that has become too diluted (greyhounds/South African racing) and just a money grabbing exercise. The Scoop6 no longer lives fully on Ch4 as it would make it too easy to win, the Jackpot is now on the toughest races of the day, and it didn’t take long for Fred to alter the payouts… When I first moved over to Betfred I couldn’t believe how the staff were treated. At Tote we enjoyed 25 days holiday, 2 weeks sick pay, an hour lunch – all pretty basic stuff, but at Betfred it got cut to 20 days holiday, no sick pay and just 30 minutes for lunch. What makes the holiday situation worse, is that in your contract it states you have to take 10 days between April & September and the other 10 in October to March, ridiculous! The Betfred staff are severely underpaid for the work they do and the conditions they do it under. There is a bonus scheme in place that is paid out every 6 months, but don’t you dare have a day off sick – it will cost you a percentage of your bonus. Speaking of bonuses, the 8 or 9 Tote staff that were running the Tote site were promised a bonus based on both Totesport & Betfred performance. But not everything goes to plan…the Betfred staff were given their bonuses whilst it was withheld from the Tote staff – Really Fred, you can’t pay 8 more people? Other nonsense around staff is the veiled lack of trust of staff from upper management. As most buildings do these days, there were key cards and green push buttons to get in/out of doors. For some reason this changed for the exit from the building, which became a swipe in/out door but this wasn’t for security reasons, it’s so they could see if staff had arrived late/left early and how long they’d spent at lunch. They’d also send around ridiculous emails about “tailgating” people and the trouble you could get in. There was also a period of at least one person leaving per week, they were either sacked or realised they were worth more than what Betfred gave them credit for. The only problem was that no one was coming in to replace them. People in key roles/appealing jobs left but Betfred showed no desire to fill the roles, there was no recruitment drive – it was down to those unlucky enough to still work there to pick up the slack, without being compensated. Don’t be too shocked at how little care they show for staff, this is the company that pays shop staff minimum wage but shows them loan adverts in shop with a 20% APR from a company that FRED is a board member of! The list is endless, the best one was when we received an email about our Betfred Christmas party, it was just £35 to attend – the only problem was we googled the restaurant to find it was owned by you guessed it…Fred and he was giving his staff a whopping £4 discount off the usual £38.95 cost! The upper management are out of touch dinosaurs, there seems to be a real “job for the boys” mentality at Betfred. Give them a choice of someone with a marketing degree and 5 years’ experience vs someone who has been an area manager for 15 years and they’ll pick the retail lad every time. This was made even more clear when a manager with no previous online experience (clicking our PPC links/didn’t have any online accounts), was put in charge of turning Totesport.com around. The management is so out of date it’s unreal, it’s the type of place where wearing a tie is more important than doing your job. If this review isn’t enough to put you off going for an interview at Betfred, or isn’t a reminder to current staff of why they need to leave, then I can’t do anymore!