Betfred will close all of its 1,300 high street betting shops if Rachel Reeves imposes a £3bn raid on the gambling industry, the company’s boss has warned.

Joanne Whittaker, chief executive, said the closure of Betfred’s retail business would lead to the loss of 6,800 jobs.

“The most frightening element is we’re going to lose the whole retail business,” Ms Whittaker told the Sunday Times. “We’ve got people in the Treasury who don’t understand our business.”

A campaign spearheaded by Gordon Brown has called for increased taxes on gamblers to fund the removal of the two-child benefit cap.

The former prime minister – alongside the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), an influential think tank in Labour circles – has suggested the measures could raise around £3.4bn per year by 2030. The sector is already expected to pay £3.8bn in tax revenues to the Exchequer this financial year.

In a letter to the Chancellor and to Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary, Ms Whittaker warned that raising taxes risks having “the opposite of their intended effect: reducing tax revenue, accelerating black market growth and eliminating thousands of jobs in communities that can least afford to lose them”.

It raises the prospect that the entire high street presence of bookmakers could be erased with painful consequences for already hard-pressed town centres and shopping parades, where retailers and hospitality businesses are also struggling under the growing tax burden.

“Increasing tax rates to the levels proposed by the IPPR would render the entire retail betting sector financially unviable, leading to the closure of betting shops across the country and the loss of approximately 46,000 jobs,” the Betfred chief executive wrote.

The Chancellor is expected to need to find as much as £30bn from tax increases and spending cuts at the Budget in a bid to get her finances back on track, as sustained high interest rates and weak economic growth have undermined her plans.

A Treasury spokesman said: “We do not comment on speculation around future changes to tax policy.”

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