Betfred to close 132 betting shops and cut more than 600 jobs
The closures start in September and will leave the bookmaker with around 1,100 shops across the UK.
Britain’s betting shop estate has been shrinking for years, and closures have accelerated since the Autumn 2025 Budget raised duties on online gambling while leaving in-shop betting duty unchanged. Betfred confirmed on 31 July 2026 that it has opened a consultation on closing 132 shops and cutting more than 600 roles from September.
What Betfred has announced
Betfred‘s plan affects more than a tenth of the bookmaker’s betting shops and will cost more than 600 jobs, leaving it with around 1,100 shops in the UK. Betfred employs around 7,500 people in total.
Chief executive Joanne Whittaker said the decision was taken with ‘deep regret’, and attributed it to a combination of cost pressures rather than gambling taxes alone.
Whittaker said:
‘We have tried hard to protect all our sites and the colleagues who work in them, but the combined impact of higher employer National Insurance contributions, wage inflation, increases in gambling taxes and wider economic uncertainty has left us with no choice.’
Betfred’s CEO added:
‘These are well-run shops, staffed by dedicated colleagues, and it is incredibly hard to see any of them close, but the current fiscal and regulatory environment has made it impossible to keep trading all our shops. Our priority now is to support the colleagues affected, and to continue serving customers and communities across the rest of our estate.’
The tax backdrop
The duty changes Betfred refers to were confirmed in the Autumn 2025 Budget. Remote gaming duty rose from 21% to 40% on 1 April 2026, and a separate 25% rate on remote betting follows from 1 April 2027.
Bets taken in licensed betting premises are unaffected and remain taxed at 15%, as do remote bets on UK horse racing.
Shop estates therefore face no direct increase in duty on over-the-counter betting, but operators running both channels absorb the online rises alongside higher employment costs. Gambling Commission licence fees are also rising by 25% from 1 October 2026.
A shrinking retail sector
Fred Done, who founded Betfred with his brother Peter in 1967, told the BBC in October 2025 that a rise of the tax then under discussion would be the ‘biggest threat’ to the industry in his 57 years in business, and warned it could put the company’s entire shop estate and about 7,500 jobs at risk. The estate has contracted from more than 1,600 shops in 2017.
Other operators have already cut back.
Flutter Entertainment confirmed in October 2025 that Paddy Power would close 57 shops across the UK and Ireland, placing 247 staff at risk, though it said at the time the closures were not directly related to the Budget.
Evoke, which owns William Hill and 888, told investors in January that it had responded to the duty changes through shop closures and cost cuts.
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