Flutter Entertainment has opened consultation on cutting as many as one in six jobs in its UK and Ireland division, citing higher remote gaming and betting duties, while the UK Gambling Commission restored a suspended online licence after anti-money laundering remediation.
On 20 October, Flutter said it would restructure its UK and Ireland business, putting up to 1,400 roles at risk. The BBC reported that staff in Leeds and Dublin, and UK and Ireland workers at Flutter sites in Portugal and Romania, would be most affected, with London, Sunderland, Malta and Gibraltar also understood to be in scope. Flutter employs about 28,500 people worldwide, including about 9,000 in the UK and Ireland.
Kevin Harrington, chief executive of Flutter's UK and Ireland business, linked the plan to tax changes announced in the 2025 Budget. Remote gaming duty on online casino products rose from 21 per cent to 40 per cent in April 2026. General betting duty on qualifying remote sports betting is due to rise from 15 per cent to 25 per cent in April 2027, with an exemption retained for UK horseracing. "The material increase in betting and gaming duties announced in the UK budget last year has fundamentally changed the economic model of the regulated betting and gaming industry in the UK while helping to fuel the unlicensed, unregulated market," Harrington said, according to The Guardian.
Flutter said it expected a one-off restructuring cost of between $80 million and $90 million. The company has previously estimated that the duty rises would reduce adjusted EBITDA by about $320 million in 2026 and $540 million in 2027 before mitigation. A government spokesperson told the BBC the job cuts were "a commercial decision for Flutter, not the UK government", while noting the difficulty for workers. Flutter's New York-listed shares rose more than 2 per cent in early US trading after the announcement, The Guardian reported.
The Betting and Gaming Council said the proposal was further evidence of the employment impact of higher duties. Flutter brands in the UK and Ireland include Paddy Power, Sky Bet and Betfair.
In regulation, the Gambling Commission confirmed that on 13 October it lifted the suspension of the combined remote operating licence of Targetlocal Ltd, which trades as Ken Howell's Sports Betting. The Commission had suspended the online casino, sports betting and virtual event licence on 21 September after enquiries revealed anti-money laundering failings and opened a review under section 116 of the Gambling Act 2005. The 13 October edit to the Commission notice said the suspension was lifted "following significant action taken by the operator". The company's non-remote general betting standard licence was not affected by the original suspension.
The restoration returns a small operator to trading after less than a month offline, but the Commission said the wider licence review continues until it is satisfied the business is compliant. For larger groups, the Flutter consultation dominates near-term workforce planning across product, customer operations and shared services hubs in the UK, Ireland and nearshore centres.
Hiring managers should expect a larger pool of UK and Ireland operators, marketers, analysts and customer-facing staff entering the market as Flutter's consultation runs, alongside continued demand for compliance, AML and safer-gambling specialists after Commission enforcement. Operators without Flutter's scale face the same duty rates with less room to absorb fixed costs, which is likely to keep restructuring and selective hiring as parallel themes into the autumn Budget period.