The boss of only one Oxfordshire company received an invitation to a high powered celebration of Britain's 100 fastest growing private companies. The bash at tycoon Sir Richard Branson's Kidlington house was thrown for directors as selected by the Oxford organisation, Fastrack 100.

Guest speaker at the event was Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, which was apt, as the local winner was a bookie who says it was largely thanks to Mr Brown that his firm made it to the august gathering.

Steve Fisher, managing director of Stan James, the Grove-based sports bookmaker, explained: "A change in Betting Tax law in October 2002 was good news for us. It meant that odds-on bets suddenly became viable.

"In the old days if you had bet £4,000 on, say, Chelsea at one to ten, you would have had to pay nine per cent of that £4,000 in tax. That would have taken up nearly all your winnings of £400. It would not have been worthwhile placing the bet.

"After the tax change, on the other hand, the nine per cent was abolished and we started to be taxed at 15 per cent of gross profits. Such bets suddenly were worthwhile again."

In 2004 alone he saw the turnover of the company, which has its headquarters at Grove Technology Park, jump 91 per cent to £250m.

Now the bookies, which achieves 90 per cent of its business through telephone and Internet sales but nevertheless still possesses 20 betting shops, employs 160 people in the UK and another 140 at a call centre in Gibraltar.

This year, with betting on the World Cup at fever pitch, more growth in turnover is expected.

All the same, Mr Fisher is quick to point out that stories of Britain being a nation addicted to gambling are exaggerated.

He said: "Media reports that every man, woman and child in Britain is gambling £800 a year are misleading because, of course, they really only spend what they lose.

"In other words, if you go into the bookies with £100, by the time you have lost it all, it might appear you've spent much more, when you take into account the wins you had in the process."

He added: "We reckon we make seven per cent of everything we take."

Mr Fisher started out in business in 1970 after leaving what he considered a dead end job with the Milk Marketing Board in Lambourne, heart of horse racing country.

He said: "Before that, its true, I used to put half a crown on a horse here and there."

The first big boost to business came in the late 1990s when Sky Sports started putting prices on the screen and Stan James started putting the screens in its shops.

The next boost came with the growth of technology, and it is here that Mr Fisher's vision of how betting would develop first came true and then bore fruit to an extent that exceeded even his wildest dreams.

He said: "That is where a small business can score: being versatile enough to see where an industry is going and getting into the right position to benefit.

"In this case, I saw that new technology would revolutionise this trade."

The paradox here is that he admits to being no techno-wizard.

He said: "I use the technology like I drive a car. I can make it do what I want it to do."

So the vision, the divining of the entrails, that led to his company becoming an early bird in the business of promoting on-line betting, relied on his finding and employing the right technocrats, telling them what he wanted their wizardry to do and leaving them to produce it.

But does it worry him that many people are becoming addicted to gambling, betting too much on credit?

He said: "It's tragic when people gamble more than they can afford and I've seen it happen time and time again.

"But they won't thank you if you refuse their bets, particularly if you refuse one on, say, a horse which wins. They will simply go elsewhere to bet."

With this problem in mind, though, this company sets the lowest credit limit.

"But its a tiny minority who get into trouble. It's like a pub many people drink there, but only a few become alcoholics."

As for the World Cup, it's certainly keeping the bookies busy, with Brazil runaway favourite at the time of writing, although a lot of loyal money is piling in behind England.

Here Mr Fisher is caught in a dilemma he would like England to win, but on the other hand, such a victory would cost him a fortune!

Contact: www.stanjamesuk.com