Flutter Entertainment to cut up to 1,400 jobs in UK & Ireland division

Flutter Entertainment will cut up to 1,400 jobs in its UK & Ireland division to offset higher UK gambling taxes, the company said. The owner of Paddy Power, Betfair and Sky Bet formally committed to the restructuring on 20 October 2026.

The group employs 28,500 people worldwide. Staff in Leeds and Dublin will be affected, as will UK & Ireland employees at the Porto and Cluj-Napoca hubs. Around 240 of the redundancies are expected to fall in Ireland, according to The Currency.

Flutter aims to complete most of the restructuring by the end of 2026.

Tax increases drive restructuring

The 2025 Budget raised Remote Gaming Duty on online casino and slots from 21% to 40% from 1 April 2026. The new 25% remote betting rate within general betting duty follows from 1 April 2027, with remote bets on UK horseracing excluded.

After the Budget, Flutter put the pre-mitigation hit to adjusted EBITDA at about $320m in 2026. First-order mitigation was expected to offset $85m in 2026, leaving net impacts of $235m that year and $339m in 2027.

Guidance for restructuring, transaction and integration costs rose to $500m.

Retail closures and leadership change

Flutter has said it may close up to 100 Paddy Power shops.

The restructuring comes shortly after Dan Taylor became group chief executive on 1 October 2026, replacing Peter Jackson. Taylor previously ran Paddy Power Betfair from 2018 to 2020.

In a letter to Chancellor John Healey, 90 Labour MPs called for a higher Machine Games Duty rate on Category B machines in this month’s Autumn Budget.