Flutter Entertainment is considering closing up to 100 Paddy Power shops in the UK and Ireland, putting 400 jobs at risk. That represents roughly a fifth of the company's retail estate — 310 locations in the UK and 196 in Ireland. The operator already closed 57 shops last October.
The driver is rising tax burden and pressure on retail operations. Remote gaming duty doubled last year; Flutter estimated the hit to profit at $320 million for the current year. A company spokesperson called the network review 'extremely difficult', citing rising costs, intense competition, economic uncertainty and the shift to online.
Second-quarter financials showed a loss of $296 million against a profit of $37 million a year earlier. Revenue in the UK and Ireland grew four per cent to $971 million. The revenue gain is not enough to offset tax and operating cost pressure.
For the market, it confirms that retail betting continues to contract even for large operators. Flutter is not the first to shrink its physical footprint under fiscal pressure. Closing a hundred shops and shedding hundreds of jobs is a direct result of changes in the UK Budget.
