Paddy Power's founder and former chief executive secretly lobbied against high-speed betting terminals that allow pundits to gamble £300 per minute.
Stewart Kenny, who co-founded Britain's largest bookmaker, warned the Irish government off the highly addictive machines, according to The Times.
Fixed-odd betting terminals (FOBTs) are "the crack cocaine of gambling" and are "particularly enticing to younger gamblers in disadvantaged areas", Kenny told an Irish government consultation on whether to legalise the machines.
He said the British government was "as addicted to the tax revenue [from the machines] as vulnerable customers are to losing money in them".
According to the Times he wrote in 2009: "There is no public demand, other than from sections of the betting industry, for FOBTs to be legalised in Ireland. It is in no one's interest, neither betting shop customers nor wider society... Let us learn from the mistake in the UK of allowing them into betting offices, once they are in it is impossible to get rid of them or even curb their more addictive elements."
FOBTs provide more than half the profits for bookmakers and Kenny's intervention is likely to cause alarm in the industry. Last year companies made £1.75bn from the high-speed machines, providing the Treasury with £438m in tax revenues.
The Association of British Bookmakers has denied the machines are more addictive than other forms of gambling and does not agree they are linked to crime and debt.
But CARE, a Christian public policy charity which has long campaigned for reducing the stake on FOBTs, said this was because of the profits involved.
CARE's CEO Nola Leach said: "The gambling industry makes millions from these machines and let's be honest, it's hardly in their interests to curb these profitable machines."
Leach urged the government to back moves reducing the maximum stake from £100 per 20 seconds to £2.
"We know that curbing the maximum stake will not solve the issue of problem gambling but it will undoubtedly help," she said.
A government consultation on the issue closed yesterday and ministers are expected to make a decision in the New Year.
