Flutter to close dozens of Paddy Power betting shops
The world’s biggest gambling company will close almost 10 per cent of its betting shops in the UK and Ireland.
UK.- After Evoke said it was looking at closing William Hill betting shops, Flutter Entertainment has followed suit. It says it will close 47 Paddy Power betting shops in the UK and Ireland within the next month. That’s almost 10 per cent of its portfolio.
The company is reported to have already informed employees and begun consultations about layoffs. There will be 28 closures in Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales), 28 in the Republic of Ireland and one in Northern Ireland.
Flutter said this will lead to 247 possible job losses: 128 in the UK and 119 in Ireland. The company said it is exploring options for some people to be redeployment in its network, but some redundancies are expected.
A spokesperson said: “In light of increasing cost pressures and challenging market conditions we can confirm that we will be closing 29 shops across the UK (including one in NI) and 28 Ireland within the next month.
“We are continually reviewing our high street estate, but it remains a key part of our offer to customers, and we are seeking to innovate and invest where we can as we adapt to different customer trends and needs.”
Flutter is the world’s biggest publicly listed gambling company, but Paddy Power is its only retail offering in the UK and Ireland, Its other brands, such as Betfair, Sky Bet and Tombola, operate entirely online. The company’s main growth driver in recent years has been Fan Duel in the US.
It did recently open the UK’s first casino sportsbook: Paddy’s at The Hippodrome in London, signalling one potential avenue for the future of land-based sports betting in the UK.
Stella David, the CEO of Entain, has also signalled possible betting shop closures. She made the comment as a warning about the consequences of a potential rise in UK gambling tax, but the government has not yet announced any tax rise, and the autumn budget will not be announced until November 26.
Nevertheless, major operators’ portfolios of betting shops have been looking overstretched considering the transition to online betting. The sector has been facing challenges since 2019, when the UK government reduced the maximum stake on Fixed-Odds Betting Terminals (FOBTs) from £100 to £2. William Hill closed 700 shops that same year.
Flutter’s confirmation of closures means three of the biggest players in British high street betting now look set to reduce their portfolios significantly. Entain has the biggest retail sports betting portfolio with 2,300 Coral and Ladbrokes shops. Other significant players are Betfred and Ireland’s Boyle Sports.
Gavin Kelleher, a gaming analyst at Goodbody, told the BBC he expected 2,000 to 3,000 UK betting shops to close in the near future. That would over half of the 5,931 betting shops in operation, according to a data from the Gambling Commission from March 2024.
