Flutter to Cut 1,400 Jobs, Blames UK Gambling Tax Hikes

The owner of Betfair and Paddy Power has cited Gambling Tax rate hikes as the reason for the firm having to make up to 1,400 job losses.

Flutter Entertainment, who also own Sky Bet and American brand FanDuel, will make the mass redundancies in their UK and Ireland offices in Leeds and Dublin, as well as other hubs across Europe.

In a statement made via the New York Stock Exchange, where Flutter is now based, a spokesperson confirmed that they were unable to ‘fully absorb’ the industry tax increases that were first rolled out in April of this year – meaning that cost cutting was unavoidable.

Industry Tax Raid

It was almost a year ago that the UK government revealed their Autumn Budget in November 2025.

Amongst it was a remarkable tax grab on the gambling sector, which saw the rate of tax paid on online casino games hiked from 21% to 40% - that was enacted in April of this year.

As if that wasn’t enough, the chancellor – Rachel Reeves – also decided to increase the rate of duty paid on online sports bets from 15% to 25%. That will be phased in as of April 2027.

The loss of revenue caused all of the industry’s major players to call emergency meetings to discuss mitigation and cost cutting methods – since November 2025, more than 600 high street betting shops have been closed permanently.

That has caused thousands of job losses at the likes of Betfred, William Hill and Ladbrokes, while even online-only operator bet365 was forced to make more than 300 people redundant back in September.

Next Target

At a time when getting a job – especially one in retail – has barely been harder, the government continues to target the betting industry as it seeks to raise much-needed funds.

Reeves’ successor as chancellor, John Healey, will announce his Autumn Budget next week (October 28). In it, he is expected to hike Machine Games Duty (MGD) – the tax paid on gaming machines within betting shops, bingo halls and casinos.

If he increases MGD to 40% as predicted, thousands more betting shops are likely to close – resulting in thousands more people out of work. The sport of horse racing would also lose out on betting levy and media rights payment of some £92 million per year.

Major Restructuring

You wonder if the threat of the MGD grab had anything to do with the timing of Flutter’s announcement.

It’s not known which roles and departments are most at risk as part of Flutter’s restructuring efforts, but up to 1,400 jobs could go as part of a consultation process.

Speaking about the bombshell announcement, Flutter’s chief executive – Kevin Harrington – commented:

In the second quarter of 2026, Flutter announced a pre-tax loss of £224 million. Today, their share price was trading at its lowest value since the start of the pandemic.