Victor Chandler
British businessman
Victor William Chandler (born 18 April 1951) is a British businessman, bookmaker, and the former chairman of Victor Chandler International.
Early life
Chandler is the son of Victor Chandler Sr, and the grandson of William Chandler, who founded the family's bookmaking business and owned London's Walthamstow Stadium. He inherited a 20% stake in Walthamstow Stadium when his father Victor Sr. died in 1974.
Off-shore bookmaking
Victor Chandler is often credited as the first bookmaker to recognise the importance of online gambling, as well as being the first to move his gaming business offshore.
In the early 1990s, Chandler began to accept football wagers from far-eastern clients and, in doing so, he recognised the potential growth in foreign markets. He opened up an office in Antigua to enable these clients to bet without the need to pay UK tax.
In the UK, punters were required to pay a 9% betting tax, but in 1996 Chandler obtained a betting licence in Gibraltar and in 1999 moved his entire business there. Over the next decade the company grew quickly and now employs over 400 people, making it one of the largest private employers on the Rock. Victor Chandler has offered free betting from £5, and in 2001 the then-Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown announced that he was scrapping UK betting tax.
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This entry incorporates text from “Victor Chandler” 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.