BetFair co-founder Ed Wray laments the suppression of UKs tax incentive for startup entrepreneurs.

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BetFair chairman Ed Wray: &#8220-Too many hurdles in the way of enterprise&#8221-.

Wray refers to a tax incentive that he and Black used to launch Betfair after they were forced to go to friends and family for funds, having failed to raise capital from institutional investors.

&#8220-That was very useful in terms of getting the business off the ground. Everything I see now is about cutting back on those opportunities.&#8221-

BetFairs Mark Davies, the last man standing

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Andrew Black:

Most of the original [BetFair] team have moved on now. Ed Wray is now Chairman, Mark Davies is still there and I’m still on the board and going in from time to time – I have three [BetFair] days this coming week but it’s normally much less than that. The other four members of the foundation team (such as it was) have moved on, but I’m in regular touch with all of them.

Two of them work full time for charities. One isn’t working at all at the moment. John, who had his 40th on Saturday, tried working in a couple of startups after Betfair, but after a fair bit of soul searching he recently decided to become a maths teacher. I had a chat with him about it.

He said that Betfair had been an amazing experience, but it had ruined him for anything else in business. Other ventures had been disappointing by comparison and just weren’t satisfying, so he had moved on to the next stage in life – giving it back.

He was very happy and very positive, just as he was during all the years I worked with him. The early years of Betfair were tough and very stressful, but it was exhilirating and also great fun at times.