Any gambling tax rises this November are expected to lead to tough trading conditions in the sector – with William Hill fearing the worst for their retail operation.
Evoke, the holding company of William Hill’s high street assets, has warned that they could close as many as 200 betting shops if the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, pressed ahead with her controversial gambling tax hikes in her Autumn budget.
And if that was the extent of the damage caused, then as many as 1,500 jobs could be lost due to the shop closures.
Difficult But Necessary Consideration
Reeves is, reportedly, planning to ‘harmonise’ gambling tax into one rate paid by all operators.
Currently, bookmakers and sports betting sites pay a tax rate of 15% on their gross gambling yield, whereas online casinos and slot operators pay 21%.
However, it’s thought that – and this is the best case scenario – the chancellor will increase the rate paid by bookmakers and betting firms to 21%, to create an industry standard.
But that might not be the worst of it, with some reporting that the gambling tax rate could be hiked to 25% or even 30% for all operators. A think tank with close ties to Parliament, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), has even called for remote gambling duty to be increased to an eye watering 50%.
This latter possibility would prove disastrous for many firms, who would have to reduce the number of promotions and concessions offered while perhaps even increasing their margins on popular betting products like the English Premier League – harming their user experience.
It could prove particularly disastrous for Evoke, who paid £2 billion to take over the running of William Hill’s high street empire in 2022 after the English firm’s non-retail assets were acquired by Caesars Entertainment.
That saddled Evoke, who changed their name from 888 Holdings in 2024, with a mountain of debt, which they have yet been able to turn around given the tougher trading conditions on Britain’s high streets.
Fears over the proposed tax hikes could see them shed between 10-15% of their entire workforce, with Evoke’s financial reporting confirming that they made a loss of £77 million in the first half of 2025.
A spokesperson for the firm commented:
“We are mindful of potential tax increases in the forthcoming budget which would impact investment in the UK and drive more customers to the black market.
“As part of our ongoing planning, we are assessing the potential impact of different overall tax scenarios on our UK operations. This includes the difficult but necessary consideration for shop closures.”
Elsewhere, Entain – the owner of Ladbrokes and Coral – have warned that they could also pull their investment from the UK market if tax conditions are made unsustainable.
Their chief, Stella David, admitted her firm was planning to ‘consider its investment level’ in the UK if the government goes ahead with its tax raid.
Allwyn Creates Gambling Behemoth
While trading conditions in the UK look set to toughen in the coming months and years, elsewhere investment continues to pile into the sector.
Allwyn, whose takeover of the UK National Lottery has been beset with issues, are looking to consolidate abroad and have agreed a merger with Greek outfit OPAP.
OPAP is something of a subsidiary company to Allwyn – both are controlled by Czech billionaire Karel Komarak, but now the two entities will join forces… creating the second largest listed gambling firm on the planet.
The merger means that the combined value of Allwyn and OPAP stands at around £13.5 billion, with Allwyn expecting to control around 78% of the shares in OPAP.
In September, a software upgrade of Allwyn’s National Lottery terminals caused a number of issues, with many players up and down the land unable to purchase tickets – it took more than 34 hours for the problem to be fixed, although many retailers have spoken of downtime in the weeks ahead of the update.
That, allied to a series of other glitches and issues behind the scenes, have led Allwyn to miss out on the targets they set out when applying for the National Lottery licence.
Ironically, it means that the UK government will miss out on an £8 billion tax ‘windfall’ from expected National Lottery earnings… although the irony perhaps won’t be lost on the other gambling businesses that will be asked to pick up the slack in November’s Budget announcement.