Entain axes 400 jobs as UK tax bites

• Entain plans to cut roughly 400 customer care jobs across 11 countries.
• The consultation covers a fifth of its 2,000-strong customer care workforce.
• CEO Stella David warns of deeper cuts if machine games duty doubles.

Entain has opened a consultation to cut around 400 customer care jobs across its global operations, a move the FTSE-listed operator links directly to the rising cost of UK gambling taxes.

Confirmed on Wednesday, the reduction would strip out roughly a fifth of the group’s 2,000-strong customer care division, with cuts spread across 11 countries including the UK.

Eleven countries, one target

The affected markets are the UK, Austria, Bulgaria, Brazil, Gibraltar, India, Ireland, the Philippines, Portugal, Spain and Uruguay. Entain has kept the UK-specific number under wraps, and the consultation is due to close by November.

Customer care is a small part of a large operation; the group employs around 30,000 people worldwide.

Entain frames the cuts as a direct response to higher UK gambling duties, which it says have driven up running costs across its betting and gaming business. Stella David, Chief Executive at Entain, said:

“The proposed changes are being made to ensure our business remains competitive, financially resilient and well positioned for the future as our sector faces an increasingly challenging operating environment.”

David added:

“This decision has not been made lightly, and our immediate priority is to support those of our colleagues who may be impacted through this transition.”

Letter to Number 10

The job cuts landed alongside a separate warning from David to Prime Minister Andy Burnham. In a letter dated 11 September and made public on Wednesday, she pushed back against reports that the government is weighing a Machine Games Duty (MGD) rise at the 28 October Budget, Chancellor John Healey’s first.

David put a figure on the threat: doubling the standard MGD rate to 40% would add roughly £100 million a year to the cost of running Entain’s UK retail shops, she wrote.

That estate is sizeable. Entain employs 13,000 people in the UK, more than 12,000 of them across its 2,300 Ladbrokes and Coral shops. David told Burnham that half of those retail staff are women, 52% work part-time or flexible hours, and over a fifth (2,570) are under 25.

She framed the letter as pragmatic rather than combative, noting Entain sits among the UK’s top 20 taxpayers and isn’t asking to dodge tax altogether. She argued a further rise would stack on duties already in force:

“These are not theoretical efficiencies in a financial model. They are people losing their jobs and communities losing long-established high-street businesses.”

Not alone in cutting

This is Entain’s second round of job losses this year tied to UK tax policy. Around 500 roles went in July, hitting product technology and group corporate functions, after the company had already flagged a “massive impact” worth roughly £250 million from the tax changes.

Those changes are already live. Remote gaming duty jumped from 21% to 40% in April, part of measures set out in Rachel Reeves’s November Budget. A new general betting duty rate on remote betting rises from 15% to 25% from April 2027.

The MGD proposal now on the table, reportedly modelled at doubling all three bands — 5% to 10%, 20% to 40%, and 25% to 50% — has drawn a sharp response from the Betting and Gaming Council, which says over 600 betting shops will have closed and 5,000 jobs will have been lost sector-wide since last year’s Budget by the end of 2026.

Entain isn’t the only operator citing tax pressure this month. Bet365 confirmed 340 job cuts across Stoke-on-Trent, Malta and Gibraltar last week, while Sky Bet relocated its headquarters to Malta to cut its UK tax bill.

Entain’s own valuation has taken a hit too: the operator dropped out of the FTSE 100 in September, though Berenberg has kept a ‘buy’ rating on the stock, with a target price of 1,145p as of this week.

David’s letter puts a number and a headcount in front of Healey before he decides. The UK-specific breakdown of this week’s job cuts, due by November, will show how much of that number lands on Entain’s own payroll, and how far the chancellor is willing to test an industry now several rounds into cutting.