Ladbrokes
British-based betting and gambling company

Ladbrokes is a British gambling company established in 1886. Its product offering includes sports betting, online casino, online poker, and online bingo. In November 2016, Ladbrokes merged with Coral to create Ladbrokes Coral Group. Since March 2018, it has been owned by Entain. Prior to its sale, Ladbrokes Coral was listed on the London Stock Exchange, and was a member of the FTSE 250 Index.
History
The company was founded by Messrs. Schwind and Pennington in 1886, as commission agents for horses trained at Ladbroke Hall in Warwickshire. The name Ladbrokes was adopted in 1902, when Arthur Bendir joined the partnership, and operations were moved to London.
Ladbrokes' London offices were first in the vicinity of the Strand, moved to Hanover Square in 1906 and, in 1913, to Six Old Burlington Street, Mayfair. From 1913 to 1956, Ladbrokes' clientele was exclusively drawn from the British aristocracy and upper classes, many of whom were members of the elite gentlemen's clubs in the St James's area of Central London.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Ladbrokes” is british-based betting and gambling company. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Ladbrokes, British-based and betting, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1799875. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1886, 2016, 2018 and 1902.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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This entry incorporates text from “Ladbrokes” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.