Flutter to Cut Up to 1,400 Jobs as UK Gambling Tax Hikes Force Restructuring

Flutter Entertainment (NYSE: FLUT) has announced plans to cut up to 1,400 jobs as it restructures its UK and Ireland business in response to sharp increases in British gambling taxes.

The operator confirmed the plans in a statement made to the markets on Tuesday, October 20. It said the restructuring will affect employees in Leeds and Dublin, as well as staff at its hubs in Porto, Portugal, and Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

The redundancies would represent around 15% of Flutter’s 9,000 employees in the U.K. and Ireland. The company employs 28,500 people worldwide.

Flutter expects the restructuring to cost between $80 million and $90 million, mainly through severance payments, employee benefits, and other expenses.

The company began notifying employees on Tuesday (October 20). It expects to complete most of the restructuring by the end of 2026.

Flutter CEO Says Tax Hikes Have Changed Economics

Flutter UK and Ireland CEO Kevin Harrington said the company’s first priority was to support affected employees.

“My immediate focus is providing the necessary support for all of our impacted colleagues and guiding our teams through what we know is going to be a difficult and challenging period for all concerned,” Harrington said.

However, he argued that the company’s decision was an unavoidable consequence of the UK government’s decision to increase gambling taxes.

“The material increase in betting and gaming duties announced in the UK Budget last year has fundamentally changed the economic model of the regulated betting and gaming industry in the UK while helping to fuel the unlicensed, unregulated market,” Harrington said.

“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.”

Flutter Latest Operator to Plan UK Cuts

The UK government’s 2025 Autumn Budget introduced substantial increases to online gambling taxation.

Remote Gaming Duty rose from 21% to 40% in April 2026. General Betting Duty on sports betting, excluding horse racing, is scheduled to rise by 10 percentage points to 25% in April 2027.

Several major UK-facing operators have since announced plans to cut staff. 

In September, Entain said it would cut 400 customer care roles to ensure the company remained “competitive, financially resilient and well-positioned” in the face of an increased tax burden.

That same month, Flutter said it was considering up to 100 Paddy Power shop closures across the UK and Ireland, putting about 400 jobs at risk.

Betfred has previously threatened to close its entire retail estate of more than 1,200 shops.

When reporting its Q2 results in August, Flutter said the UK tax hike had already contributed to a 45% decline in adjusted EBITDA for the quarter.

Flutter previously estimated that changes to UK gambling taxes would reduce its adjusted EBITDA by $540 million in 2027. It expects to offset $201 million of that impact through initial cost-cutting measures, which include the announced restructuring.

Despite the job losses, Flutter believes its scale will allow it to strengthen its position as the wider UK gambling market adjusts to higher taxes.

“We remain confident that we are well placed to benefit from share gains given our position as the largest scale operator in the UK,” Harrington said.