A spokesperson told NEXT.io that deciding to review the operator’s retail estate was an “extremely difficult decision”, but blamed higher gambling taxes among other headwinds

Flutter Entertainment-owned Paddy Power is undergoing a review of its retail estate that could see up to 100 betting shops closed across the UK and Ireland.

As a result, 400 jobs within the company are at risk of redundancy, though Flutter has told NEXT.io that “impacted colleagues will be offered redeployment opportunities where possible”.

Any measures pursued as a result of the review are being attributed to a multitude of external pressures including rising energy costs, rents, business rates and increased gambling taxes.

A spokesperson for the company said: “We are incredibly proud of our high street estate, and it remains a key part of our business in communities across the UK and Ireland. Unfortunately, we have had to take the extremely difficult decision to conduct this review.”

Scale of the closures

It is not clear where the 100 shops would be concentrated, but last year, when the operator closed 57 shops, they were split evenly between Ireland and Britain, with 28 shuttered in each and one in Northern Ireland.

Proportionally that weighted the closures against Ireland, which had fewer properties to begin with.

At time of writing, there are 506 remaining shops across the UK and Ireland – 310 in the UK and 196 in Ireland – so the proposed closures would represent just under a fifth of the entire estate.

And if all 400 jobs are indeed lost, that would reduce the operator’s total retail headcount to 1,909.

The Flutter spokesperson added: “Our immediate priority at this time is to support those colleagues affected by this announcement.”

Headwinds

In advance of last year’s UK Autumn Budget, many leading figures in the UK retail betting sector warned that tax hikes would lead to mass closures and job losses.

Flutter’s spokesperson made reference to a wider set of pressures in its statement to NEXT.io, saying: “The high street trading environment has been challenging for a number of years given rising costs, fierce competition, economic uncertainty and the shift to online but we also face a material impact from the higher gambling taxes announced in last year’s UK budget.”

Ultimately, high street betting shops were spared the immediate cost of those tax hikes, while remote gaming duty took the brunt, rising from 21% to 40%.

That increase was enforced from April 2026, while an additional raising of remote betting duty to 25% will come into effect from April 2027.

The reality is that major operators like Paddy Power have exposure in all those areas, however, and the retail carve-out has seemingly failed to spare the sector from downstream impacts.

And this is not exclusively a Paddy Power trend, as other UK high street stalwarts Betfred and William Hill have undergone similarly significant retail restructuring in past months.

Wider problems at Flutter?

Many of the potentially negative industry impacts of the remote gaming duty hike appear to have been absorbed by operators so far, with the likes of Entain announcing a 13% rise in UK and Ireland online revenue in its Q2 results.

Flutter’s UK and Ireland revenue also increase year-on-year by 4% to $971m during the same period, and more specifically, iGaming revenue grew by 7%. Still, the operator reported a $296m net loss for the quarter.

These closures are not the only decisive action taken by Flutter in recent weeks to restore shareholder confidence, with Peter Jackson also departing as group CEO and being replaced by Dan Taylor.

Jackson noted the transition of focus at Flutter in some of his parting comments, saying: “In my time as CEO Flutter has changed beyond recognition, transitioning from a UK-focused Paddy Power Betfair, into the world’s leading online sports betting and iGaming operator, with market leading positions in the US and around the world.”

However, Flutter now appears to be attempting to get ahead of what it feels will be the cumulative impacts of UK headwinds and “economic uncertainty”.

Flutter UK and Ireland justified last year’s closures by suggesting that the higher gambling taxes would impact underlying earnings by $540m in 2026/2027 before mitigation.