THE country’s biggest bookmaker, Ladbrokes, is set to launch its own betting exchange website in competition with Betfair, the market leader.

The move would mark a u-turn because the bookie has been an outspoken critic of the exchanges. It feels it has no alternative following revelations in The Sunday Times last weekend that the government is set to ignore calls from an all-party committee to introduce a new tax regime for the exchanges to bring them more in line with traditional bookies.

One Ladbrokes insider said: “If the government ignores the unanimous recommendations of the scrutiny committee then we move into a different world. At that point, it gives a clean bill of health to what the exchanges do. We would have to look at, or at least examine very seriously, whether to enter that marketplace.

“I don’t see how, as a very serious player in this market, we could be happy with a situation where a competitor can exist offering our customer base betting opportunities to act as a bookmaker without paying tax and levy. It would be questionable how long that would be sustainable.”

Exchanges such as Betfair allow people to bet against each other rather than against a bookie; they therefore get better odds. Many users of exchanges also use them to “lay” bets — in effect, backing a horse to lose, something that previously only bookmakers could do.

Exchanges came to prominence this year when two races were linked to unusual betting patterns on the sites.

In one instance, Kieren Fallon was alleged to have thrown a race while in the other Sean Fox was banned for 21 days for “stepping off” his ride.

Chris Bell, chief executive of Ladbrokes, will be seen on BBC’s The Money Programme this week saying that he believes “one race per day in British racing is now being corrupted”.

Culture secretary Tessa Jowell made it clear in a letter to The Sunday Times that the regulation of online gambling would be dealt with in the new gambling bill, but said that the matter of taxation would be left to the chancellor, Gordon Brown.

Jowell said: “We have always been clear that betting exchanges, which currently operate under the authority of bookmakers’ permits, require a form of regulation that is tailored to the way this type of business operates. So, far from deciding not to regulate them, we are creating a new licence category of ‘betting intermediary’ to ensure they do not slip through the regulatory net.”