Ladbrokes, Britain’s biggest bookmaker, said this morning that full year pre-tax profits fell by 28 per cent, to £250.2 million, mainly because of a big drop in business by its "high rolling" punters.

These punters typically place bets of more than £10,000 a time — but the amount of betting they did declined during 2008 as many lost their jobs in financial services or drew in their horns in anticipation of lower bonuses.

It meant that the amount in operating profits contributed by high rollers dived by 55 per cent.

Despite this apparent setback, Chris Bell, the chief executive of Ladbrokes, said: “We have always been clear that the frequency of high rollers activity is unpredictable and, although not as active as 2007, high rollers contributed £80.1million of profit during 2008 — a very material and invaluable source of cash in today’s challenging environment.”

Mr Bell said that, overall, the bookie’s underlying performance had been good despite the challenging economic background.

Ladbrokes’ high street betting chain, which has 2,091 shops and 52 on-site outlets, enjoyed a rise of nearly 5 per cent in gross win — total bets minus payouts — to £773.9 million.

He said this was partly due to extended winter evening opening in the first three months of 2008 along with a boost in activity generated by the European Football Championships — despite the failure of England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic to qualify for the competition.

Mr Bell also played down the impact of the recent arctic weather to hit the UK. He said that gross win had continued to rise since the start of the year despite the “unusually high” levels of UK and Irish horse race abandonments so far in 2009.

He said some 58 race meetings had been abandoned in the first six weeks of 2009 — up from only 33 in the same period last year — while Ladbrokes was forced to close up to 300 betting shops because staff could not get to work in the bad weather.

He said that revenues at Ladbrokes’s eGaming operation were also up by a fifth, to £172.2 million, thanks partly to increased TV advertising and the tailoring of products to meet regional tastes.

Operating profits, excluding bets by high rolling punters, rose by 0.9 per cent to £243.8 million — beating the £240 million which had been expected by analysts. The shares rose by nearly 5 per cent in early trading.

Matthew Gerard, of broker Investec, said: “The results highlight a generally resilient performance when compared with other consumer-facing companies.”

But Ivor Jones, of broker Evolution Securities, said: “Shareholders should use the opportunity to sell. We believe the risk/reward ratio is better at William Hill. The results are in line but the core business is flat and Ladbrokes is having to work ever harder to stand still.”

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