UK Treasury calls out Betfred after claims tax is to blame for 132 retail betting shop closures
Betfred’s sweeping retail betting shop closures have sparked debate over the impact of gambling tax.
UK.- A sharp exchange has broken out between the UK Treasury and one of the country’s biggest bookmakers. Betfred says higher taxes are partly to blame for its decision to close 132 retail betting shops – over 10 per cent of its more than 1,200 locations. The Treasury has pointed out that the tax rate on betting shops hasn’t changed.
Announcing the latest round of closures, Betfred chief executive Jo Whitaker blamed the company’s closures on “the increase in gambling taxes, wage inflation, National Insurance contributions, and general economic uncertainty.”
The Betting and Gaming Council (BGC), which represents much of the regulated industry, backed that argument: “At last year’s budget, the BGC warned that further substantial tax increases would undermine jobs, investment and growth across Britain’s regulated betting and gaming industry. The closures are the latest example of those warnings becoming reality,” it said in a statement.
However, HM Treasury pointed out a flaw in the argument in a statement made to The Times: “It is wrong to suggest it is the fault of government for these closures. Gambling duty rates for high street shops have not changed.”
Betfred’s announcement last week was hardly a surprise. The Done brothers’ company had effectively telegraphed the decision ahead of last autumn’s budget, when it warned in October that its ”whole retail betting business” would be on the line if gambling taxes were hiked.
In the end, Remote Gaming Duty was hiked from 21 per cent to 40 per cent in April, but only for online casino revenue. Another tax hike will come into effect from April 2027, with General Betting Duty to climb from 15 to 25 per cent. Retail betting will remain exempt.
Other major operators have all already announced closures and restructurings. Entain announced jobs cuts last month while Evoke announced the closure of 200 William Hill betting shops back in March. Flutter Entertainment jumped the gun a little when it announced the closure of dozens of Paddy Power betting shops last October before the Autumn Budget had even been revealed. That move had already raised questions about whether tax rises were really responsible or merely a convenient excuse to scale back costly retail operations amid a downturn that’s been in progress for several years.
Are taxes to blame?
Delivering last autumn’s budget, the then chancellor Rachel Reeves (under the then Prime Minister Keir Starmer) intentionally made an exemption for high street shops and horseracing betting following lobbying by the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) and the British Horseracing Authority. More recently, there have been proposals to raise gaming machine duty, while business rates look set to rise for land-based gaming halls, but, for now at least, the tax rate on retail betting remains unchanged.
Betfred has seen strong financial performance in recent years, reporting Gross profit of £1bn and £1.45bn in revenue for the 78 weeks ending March 2025. Retail contributed nearly £900m compared to online gambling revenue of £563.6m, showing that land-based outlets remain more important for the company than for some others.
Nevertheless, retail betting performance across the market as a whole has been declining. 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. Betfred closed 51 shops between 2021 and 2022, suggesting that its downsizing was also already underway.
For Q4 2025, retail betting gross gambling yield (GGY) was down 7 per cent year-on-year to approximately £549m. That left major operators’ portfolios of betting shops still looking overstretched. The sector also faces growing opposition from local authorities, which have been calling for more powers to reject betting shop and gaming hall planning applications.
That said, there is some logic to Betfred’s argument. Most gambling operators have said they intend to absorb the rise in Remote Gaming Duty rather than pass on the cost to customers, risking their competitiveness. Cutting costs in other verticals is a way to help achieve this.
