Flutter to cut up to 1,400 UK & Ireland jobs amid tax rises

Flutter Entertainment is cutting up to 1,400 jobs in its UK & Ireland business, with roles affected in Leeds and Dublin as well as UK&I-focused staff at company hubs in Porto, Portugal and Cluj-Napoca, Romania, SBC News reported.

Betfair Romania Development confirmed on LinkedIn that around 300 UK&I workers based in Cluj-Napoca are among those affected.

Flutter has linked the cuts to what it described as the significant increase in UK gaming taxation announced in last year's Autumn Budget. Remote Gaming Duty rose from 21% to 40% in April 2026, and General Betting Duty is due to climb from 15% to 25% in April 2027.

The sector is also bracing for a possible increase in Machine Games Duty to 40%. Ninety Labour MPs have signed a letter written by Alex Ballinger MP urging the government to proceed with doubling MGD on Category B gaming machines.

The redundancies come weeks after Dan Taylor, previously chief executive of Flutter International, replaced Peter Jackson as group CEO. Flutter UK&I chief executive Kevin Harrington reports directly to Taylor, who also led Paddy Power Betfair between 2018 and 2020.

Harrington said his immediate focus was "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."

He added that the duty increases set out in last year's UK Budget had "fundamentally changed the economic model of the regulated betting and gaming industry in the UK while helping to fuel the unlicensed, unregulated market," and said Flutter could not absorb a rise of this scale without cutting its fixed cost base.

Flutter's UK&I operations comprise Paddy Power, Betfair and Sky Betting & Gaming. The business placed 100 Paddy Power betting shops under review earlier this year, citing tax increases, economic uncertainty and competition.

The unit had otherwise been a relative bright spot in recent results, with UK&I revenue up 4% year-on-year to $971m in the second quarter of 2026. Before leaving the group, Jackson reiterated Flutter's market share of around 39% in sports betting and 22% in iGaming, and said the tax rises offered the company "a really good chance to substantially increase this."

Harrington's statement that Flutter remains "well placed to benefit" from its scale suggests the group still sees an opportunity to gain share even as it restructures, a sign of the mixed signals tier-one UK operators continue to send to investors and government over the tax changes.

Flutter has estimated the duty increases will cost the business $540m in 2027, which it intends to partially offset through $201m of first-order mitigation. The restructuring is expected to support further, longer-term mitigation through market share gains.

The company said the costs of implementing the restructuring, put at $80m to $90m, were captured in the updated guidance issued with its second-quarter earnings and will be incurred in the fourth quarter of 2026.