Poker News

Flutter Does The UK Tax Math: 1,400 Jobs at Risk

By Pessi Lamm

3 hours ago

Pessi Lamm 3 hours ago

Share this article

Flutter will cut up to 1,400 jobs in the UK and Ireland in response to government gambling tax increases.
The new tax rates include a 40% remote gaming duty and 25% betting duty, impacting company profits significantly.
Other operators, including Entain and Betfred, are also reducing staff and closing shops amid the tax changes.

Brutal tax math. Flutter faces up to 1,400 potential job cuts as UK gambling duties rise.

Flutter, the owner of PokerStars, Paddy Power, Betfair and Sky Bet, plans to cut up to 1,400 jobs across its UK and Ireland business. Its reason? The government's gambling tax rises.

And Flutter isn't the only operator feeling the heat.

Flutter Swings the Axe After Doing the Math

Announced on October 20, the restructuring could hit around 16% of Flutter's 9,000 UK and Ireland employees.

Leeds and Dublin are in the frame, along with UK and Ireland teams working out of the company hubs in Porto and Cluj-Napoca.

What?	Numbers
Potential job cuts	Up to 1,400
UK and Ireland workforce	Around 9,000
Expected restructuring costs	80m-90m
Estimated 2027 tax impact on adjusted EBITDA	$540m
Expected first-order mitigation	$201m

Read that $540 million twice. It's Flutter's estimate of the annual adjusted EBITDA hit once the tax changes bite in 2027, before mitigation.

SUPPORT FLUTTER, PLAY ON POKERSTARS UKUSE PROMO CODE NEWBONUS & JOIN TODAYJOIN NOW

The UK Gambling Tax Hikes Explained

The government's argument is somewhat expected and straightforward. Online gambling is booming, so it should contribute more, and steeper casino duties are there to mitigate the rising harms.

So the plan is to make gambling companies pay more, supposedly to protect the public.

Here's what's changing:

Gambling duty	Previous rate	New rate	Effective date
Remote Gaming Duty, including online casino games	21%	40%	April 1, 2026
Remote betting duty, excluding UK horseracing	15%	25%	April 1, 2027

The government expects north of £1 billion a year out of this in the coming years. These duties apply to operators' gambling profits or yield, not to every bet or deposit a player makes. The 40% casino rate is already in force. Sports betting gets its turn next April. Remote bets on UK horseracing stay outside the new rate.

Who Pays for the Sheriff's New Tax?

Flutter isn't alone. Entain has announced job cuts amid concerns about the same tax changes, and Betfred plans to close 132 betting shops, putting around 600 jobs at risk.

The government, meanwhile, says employment decisions are commercial choices made by the companies themselves. Fair enough, technically. But when every operator points at the same tax change, pretending policy has nothing to do with the wider picture is rather convenient. So what's the end goal here?

"As we warned a year ago, we cannot fully absorb a rise of this magnitude without reducing our fixed cost base and therefore must restructure our business so that we can best position ourselves for the future...." – Kevin Harrington, Flutter UK & Ireland, Chief Executive

The government wants a larger slice of gambling revenue. Flutter wants its profitability intact. Workers get the consequences of somebody else's restructuring plan, delivered most likely by email.

The Sheriff has collected his tax. Now comes the awkward part: finding out whether the kingdom is actually better off.

SUPPORT FLUTTER, PLAY ON POKERSTARS UKUSE PROMO CODE NEWBONUS & JOIN TODAYJOIN NOW