Chief executives of Britain’s biggest betting firms have written to Chancellor John Healey urging him to rule out any further gambling tax rises at next month’s Budget.
The Betting & Gaming Council published the letter on October 14 and it carries the signatures of the heads of six companies: Entain, Flutter UK & Ireland, bet365, Bally’s Corporation, evoke and Betfred. It asks Healey to hold Machine Games Duty where it is and to delay the planned rise in General Betting Duty, scheduled for April 2027, until the effect of the tax increases already in force has been measured.
The industry is still absorbing a near doubling of Remote Gaming Duty introduced at the 2025 Budget. The letter puts the cost so far at more than 600 betting shops gone and 10,250 positions across online and retail either gone or put forward for redundancy. It lists Betfred and William Hill among the businesses that have shut shops, points to outlets under review at Paddy Power and to 300 job cuts at bet365 in Stoke-on-Trent. These counts come from the industry itself and no independent check has been made.
Analysis the council commissioned from EY is also cited in the letter. It models a doubling of Machine Games Duty on Category B machines to 40 per cent and finds that this could shut between 690 and 1,470 further betting shops, close 28 to 34 casinos and put between 11,600 and 15,900 jobs at risk, while leaving the Exchequer as much as £124 million short. On that same projection, horseracing would see at least £40 million of levy and media-rights payments disappear.
Grainne Hurst, chief executive of the Betting & Gaming Council, said: “You cannot tax businesses that have closed, and the Government risks destroying jobs and investment without raising a penny more for the Treasury.” She said further rises would close more businesses, cost thousands of jobs and damage British sport.
The intervention follows a separate BGC warning the previous day that the Budget must protect 36,000 betting shop jobs, with young workers and Britain’s towns said to be bearing the brunt. Gambling Commission data shows betting shop numbers in Great Britain have fallen around 38 per cent since 2015.
Hurst said: “Further tax rises will only accelerate that decline.” No response from the Treasury has been reported, and the exact date of the Budget is not stated in the council’s release.
Renata Kovacs has spent the better part of a decade following the regulatory shifts and licensing battles that define how gambling markets open, close, and evolve across Europe and beyond. She came up through the legal and compliance side of the industry before shifting her focus to journalism and analysis, giving her a perspective that sits closer to the operator room than the press box. Her coverage tends to cut through the noise and get straight to what a regulatory change actually means for the businesses and players involved.