If bookies always win over the long term, the short-term ride can be strewn with unseated jockeys, as Ladbrokes accepted this week. The company, which is raising £275 million to bolster its balance sheet, had to admit to the stock market a run of bad luck.

The gaming industry does well out of draws in big football matches, but over the third quarter, the ball obstinately hit the back of the net too often for one side or another. Revenue from its UK betting shops fell 15 per cent.

“I’ve never seen anything like it in all the time I’ve been here,” Chris Bell, the chief executive, marvels in a rare break between institutional presentations to market the rights issue. “No, bookies normally don’t lose and I’m sure we will return to our winning ways. I’ve done this job 20 years and sometimes you get the odd rocky ride. Because our business is all about averages, it only happens now and then.”

Ladbrokes’ run of luck has improved since the end of September and last weekend there were four draws. But Mr Bell remains cautious: “I’m long enough in the tooth to know one weekend doesn’t make a year.”

Would it help if goals were widened to make for more uneven results? “I don’t mind if they’re bigger as long as there are draws.”

Mr Bell joined Ladbrokes in 1991 and became managing director four years later. Something of an authority on racing, he is also vice-chairman of the Association of British Bookmakers, chairman of the Bookmakers’ Committee, a member of the Horserace Betting Levy Board and a nonexecutive director of Game Group, the computer games retailer.

With this portfolio, he is a natural first port of call for those seeking an industry view. Richard Caborn, the former sports minister who is spearheading England’s bid to host the football World Cup in 2018, had regular dealings with Mr Bell — in particular, in the parliamentary passage of the Gambling Act 2005 and in the setting up of an expert panel to examine the threat of gambling-related corruption in British sport. According to Mr Caborn, “Chris Bell is recognised in the industry as somebody who is a visionary and a moderniser. I was able to go to him as a sounding board when we were looking at the new structure of the racing industry. He was one of the people we went to for an objective view to take the thing forward. He could take his hat off as Ladbrokes and speak much more for the whole sector. It would be a non-Ladbrokes view. That’s because he’s very respected in that area; he’s been around a long time.”

In his own words, a “young, humble lad from Doncaster”, Mr Bell failed to get to university to read law and did business studies at a poly instead, before landing a job at Allied Breweries. He then went to Victoria Wine, the off-licence chain.

His big break came in 2005 when Ladbrokes was demerged from the Hilton hotels group and he found himself running a FTSE 100 company.

Mr Bell hit the headlines last year when he banned his company’s 14,000 staff from using British Airways after his teenage daughter had a bad experience. She and a friend were bumped off a flight from Barbados and when he complained, he said with typical bluntness: “Some bird rang up from a call centre and offered the two girls £20 vouchers each at the corporate shop. I said: ‘What do you expect them to buy with that, a teddy bear?’ ” He retracted the ban after a personal apology from Willie Walsh, BA’s boss.

Most people say that Mr Bell is an immensely friendly type. Sir David Michels, the former Hilton chief executive who promoted him to the board, says: “I think Chris’s so-called likeability is essential in the racing industry. It’s an enormously political and sensitive job to hold. You have various government departments to deal with and they aren’t always the easiest. You’ve also got the racing fraternity to deal with and they aren’t the easiest. Being personable is one of the important parts of running a betting business.”

Mr Bell has admitted to a fondness for three-card brag — and to being a bad loser. Does he, as head of one of the country’s biggest bookies, enjoy the odd flutter? “Not a lot. I don’t have the time. My Grandad used to take me to the bookies, but in those days I had to wait outside. I’m used to going to the bookies from a very early age.”

Chris Bell

Born: November 18, 1957

Education: Mexborough Grammar School, Doncaster; Wolverhampton Polytechnic

Career: 1980-88: Ind Coope & Allsopp, then Ind Coope Burton Brewery; 1988-89: marketing director, Allied Beer Brand; 1989-91: marketing and buying director, Victoria Wine; 1991: Joins Ladbrokes as marketing director; 1995: becomes managing director; 2000: joins Hilton Group board as chief executive, Ladbrokes Worldwide; 2006: chief executive, Ladbrokes.

Also: non-executive director, Game Group; vice-chairman, Association of British Bookmakers; member, Responsible Gambling Strategy Board; chairman of the Bookmakers’ Committee; a member of the Levy Board

Other interests: travel, wine, food, flying, reading

He lives in Oxford and has two daughters

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