BRITAIN’S gambling boom has helped fuel a 20% increase in the combined wealth of the country’s super-rich.

Half of the new entries in this year’s Sunday Times Rich List with fortunes of £500m or more have made their money from hosting internet gambling or owning casinos.

Their rise is the most conspicuous of an extraordinary tripling in wealth of the country’s 1,000 richest people under Labour — up to £301 billion, from £99 billion in the nine years since Tony Blair came to power. By contrast, average earnings have risen just 37%, while the value of the average house in Britain has risen by 160% or £100,000.

The growth of gambling fortunes has been fuelled by a surge in the habit, with Britons betting £800 for every man, woman and child last year. Average spending, along with problem gambling, is likely to increase as Labour’s deregulation of casinos takes effect.

In the past year the overall wealth of the Rich List 1,000 has shot up 20.6%, or more than £50 billion, equivalent to the nation’s total annual wager. The number of billionaires has risen by 14 to 54, with 20 of the total coming from overseas.

Topping the list for the second year running is Lakshmi Mittal, the Indian-born steel magnate whose wealth is now assessed at almost £14.9 billion.

While Philip and Tina Green, the king and queen of Britain’s high street, keep most of their £4.9 billion fortune in Monaco for tax reasons, Russian oligarchs and American gaming bosses have chosen London as the place to spend or invest their fortunes. A newcomer to the list is Ruth Parasol, 39, a former sex chatline owner from California, who with her husband Russell De Leon, 40, owns 31.4% of the online poker site PartyGaming.

They jump into the list at number 17 with a fortune of £2.016 billion. They rake in one dollar for every five dollars wagered on their internet poker tables or casinos.

Most of PartyGaming’s customers live in America but none of its operations is based there because of moves to declare online gambling illegal. The firm operates from Gibraltar, a British dependency, and was listed in London last year.

Another Gibraltar gambling operator, Victor Chandler, enters with £500m and the London-based Betfair has its two founders — Andrew Black and Ed Wray, each worth £230m — and a shareholder, Richard Koch (£103m), on the Rich List.

New entries include Peter Coates, 68, a miner’s son who once provided the meat pies at football matches, and his daughter Denise, 38, who launched their online firm Bet365 in 2000 and are now worth £126m.

Damien Hirst, the artist, is a new entry with £100m, and 15 alumni of Goldman Sachs, the investment bank, make the list.

Philip Beresford, the compiler of the Rich List, said: “It’s the betting boom for Britain’s new billionaires. This year’s list reflects the way internet gambling has taken off.”

Mark Griffiths, professor of gambling studies at Nottingham Trent University, said: “Gambling has moved from being a sin and a vice to become socially acceptable entertainment.”

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