Sami Kurvinen 
Big Daddy Gaming Granted a UKGC License
Big Daddy Gaming is the latest slot developer to receive a UKGC license, meaning it will soon make…
Hundreds of jobs lost as UK betting shops shut
Betfred is closing about 10% of its UK betting shops because higher taxes and rising operating costs have made some locations too expensive to keep open. It’s part of a wider trend affecting the UK betting industry, not just one company.
How many jobs are affected by this?
Betfred is shutting 132 betting shops across the UK, and around 600 people are expected to lose their jobs.
Why is this happening?
The main reason Betfred is giving is that it’s become much more expensive to run these shops. The government recently increased taxes on gambling companies, and businesses are also dealing with higher National Insurance costs, rising wages, and general economic pressure.
Betfred says it didn’t want to close the shops, but it feels it can’t afford to keep all of them open anymore. The company has started talking to the employees who’ll be affected, and says it will try to support them through the process.
The background to this is that last year, Betfred’s co-founder, Fred Done, warned that if gambling taxes went up enough, they might even have to close all of their UK betting shops. That hasn’t happened, but these 132 closures show the warning wasn’t just talk.
The biggest tax change is that from April 2026, the tax on online gambling profits almost doubled from 21% to 40%. There’s also another betting tax increasing next year. Betfred argues that, combined with other rising business costs, it’s made some of its shops unprofitable.
Will we see similar reactions from other UK companies?
This isn’t just a Betfred problem. Other major bookmakers, including Evoke (which owns brands like William Hill) and Entain (which owns Ladbrokes and Coral), have also warned that higher taxes could mean fewer betting shops on UK high streets.
We can probably expect to see fewer betting shops on UK high streets over the next few years, as the gambling industry says higher taxes make it harder to keep physical shops open, while the government argues that the tax changes help raise public revenue and regulate the sector.
