Betfred’s near-£1bn year closes before online duty doubles

• Betfred reports £995.6m turnover and £39.6m profit after tax for the 52 weeks to 29 March 2026.
• The estate shrinks to 1,293 shops, with 132 further closures under consultation.
• Chancellor John Healey’s 28 October Budget could bring a machine tax rise.

Betfred made a £39.6m profit after tax on £995.6m of turnover in the 52 weeks to 29 March 2026. The figures come from group accounts filed at Companies House. The period closed three days before the UK’s 40% Remote Gaming Duty took effect.

Inside the accounts

Gross profit came in at £720m. Online turnover came to roughly £452m, leaving about £544m from the shop estate.

Betfred put £110.4m into development costs for its online platform over the year.

Average headcount fell from 9,622 to 9,463. The estate dropped a net 58 shops, from 1,351 to 1,293.

Online gains ground

There is no clean year-on-year comparison. Betfred switched its year end from September to March, so the previous accounts ran for 78 weeks to 30 March 2025.

That longer period produced £1.46bn in turnover and £128.8m in profit after tax, according to the group’s previous filing. Shops brought in £894.8m and online £563.6m.

The periods are not like-for-like, but they point in one direction. Online made up about 45% of turnover in the latest 52 weeks, against roughly 39% across the prior 78 weeks.

Warnings since 2025

Betfred first went public with its tax fears in October 2025. It said then it might have to close all its shops if duties rose sharply, with up to 7,500 jobs on the line.

It also said about 300 shops were losing money. Employer National Insurance and minimum wage increases had already added £20m to its cost base.

Then-Chancellor Rachel Reeves left duty on over-the-counter bets untouched in her November 2025 Budget. Online took the hit instead. HMRC expects the package to raise £810m in 2026–27 and more than £1bn a year after that.

132 more shops closing

Shops kept closing anyway. On 31 July 2026, Betfred began consulting on the closure of 132 sites, with the company saying more than 600 jobs were at risk. Sky News first reported the plan.

Jo Whittaker, Chief Executive at Betfred, 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.”

The PA news agency reported that the plan would leave Betfred with around 1,100 shops, against a peak of 1,680 in 2017 cited by Sky News. Industry executives have told the government that closures are accelerating a shift to unregulated offshore operators.

Racing, rugby and regulators

Each closure costs horseracing money. An insider quoted by Sky News put each Betfred shop’s average contribution at close to £31,000 in media rights and levy payments.

Betfred has not renewed its title sponsorship of rugby league’s Super League, which it held from 2017 through the 2026 season, according to Sportcal. Chairman Fred Done has said a decision on extending Betfred’s backing of the five British Classics depends on how the Budget treats machines.

The Gambling Commission has kept up its own pressure. Betfred.com operator Petfre (Gibraltar) Limited will pay £900,000 under a settlement announced on 30 June over social responsibility failures. Done Brothers (Cash Betting) Limited, which trades as Betfred, was fined £825,000 in December 2025 over AML, safer gambling and sanctions-screening failings.

Online duty doubles

Remote Gaming Duty rose from 21% to 40% for accounting periods starting on or after 1 April 2026, according to HMRC guidance. The rise does not apply retrospectively, so none of that cost sits in these accounts.

Remote sports bets move to a 25% rate of General Betting Duty from 1 April 2027. UK horseracing is exempt, and bets on self-service terminals in shops stay at 15%.

The government aimed the steepest rise at online casino, which it describes as cheaper to run and more harmful than betting. HMRC’s impact note accepts that operators may pass costs on through worse odds and that some players could turn to the illegal market. It estimates around 310 businesses serving UK customers online face higher bills.

Rivals cut back too

Entain is consulting on around 400 customer care roles, after cutting about 500 jobs in July. Flutter is reviewing up to 100 Paddy Power shops, less than a year after announcing 57 closures.

Evoke confirmed around 270 William Hill closures alongside a £549.1m pre-tax loss for 2025. bet365 announced 340 job cuts across Stoke-on-Trent, Malta and Gibraltar on 9 September. Sky Bet moved its headquarters from Leeds to Malta last November.

The Betting and Gaming Council forecasts that more than 600 shops and 5,000 jobs will have gone sector-wide between the last Budget and the end of 2026.

Machine tax in focus

In June, the Social Market Foundation proposed doubling Machine Games Duty on betting shop machines from 20% to 40%.

Done claims that would shut 495 shops, around 45% of Betfred’s estate, and cost racing a further £15.8m a year. He told the Financial Times that fixed-odds betting terminals earn half of the group’s shop profits.

Done also predicted there would be no betting shops left on the high street by 2030 if the rise goes through.

Entain chief executive Stella David has written to Prime Minister Andy Burnham with a similar warning. Entain estimates a 40% machine rate would add roughly £100m a year to the cost of running its Ladbrokes and Coral shops.

Eyes on 28 October

Chancellor John Healey delivers his first Budget on 28 October. With the Classics decision tied to machine duty, racing will be watching as closely as the bookmakers.

The 2026–27 accounts will be the first to carry nearly a full year of 40% online duty. They will show whether the platform spending can hold online margins as the estate gets smaller.