Six of the UK’s largest gambling operators have asked the government to pause a planned rise in General Betting Duty, as part of a wider lobbying push against a potential doubling of Machine Games Duty. The chief executives of Entain, Flutter UK & Ireland, bet365, Bally’s Corporation, evoke and Betfred signed a joint letter to Chancellor John Healey ahead of the November Budget. The intervention raises the stakes in an increasingly tense standoff between the industry and the Treasury over gambling taxation.
What happened: General Betting Duty pause sought
A letter penned by some of the biggest members of the Betting and Gaming Council, the UK’s gambling trade body, has gone directly to Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey, regarding the tax hikes.
The letter calls for a pause to the planned increase in General Betting Duty as part of the industry’s lobbying attempts against a potential Machine Games Duty rise.
It argues that the General Betting Duty increase, due to take effect on 1 April 2027, should be paused until the impact of tax rises already introduced has been fully assessed.
The tax rises already in force referenced in the letter include Remote Gaming Duty nearly doubling from 21% to 40% in April 2026.
BGC chief executive Grainne Hurst said the warning to the Chancellor was stark.
She said further tax rises will close more businesses, cost thousands more jobs and damage British sport, while potentially leaving the Treasury worse off.
The BGC has commissioned independent analysis from EY to back its case. The modelling suggests a 40% Machine Games Duty rate could lead to several hundred further betting shop closures, dozens of casino closures and thousands of job losses.
The trade body argues these factors combined would create a net loss to the exchequer of up to £124m once losses from other taxes are accounted for.
Since last November’s budget, 600 betting shops have closed or are closing, with 132 of those owned by Betfred, and the BGC estimates that 11,000 gambling industry jobs have been lost since that budget.
Why it matters
The letter lands roughly two weeks before the Autumn Budget, a period in which the industry has previously had limited success reversing tax decisions.
Momentum has, thus far, been with reformist voices, particularly since a successful campaign in 2025 to raise Remote Gaming Duty and General Betting Duty.
That history makes this round of lobbying harder to call, but the commercial logic is clear: every additional percentage point of duty compresses operator margins and, over time, feeds through into marketing and acquisition budgets.
For affiliates, continued retail contraction matters as much as the headline tax figures. Fewer betting shops on the high street push more customer acquisition online, intensifying competition for search visibility and paid traffic around the brands that remain. If General Betting Duty does rise further in 2027, operators facing tighter margins are likely to scrutinise affiliate commission structures and performance marketing spend even more closely, making cost-efficient, compliant traffic sources more valuable than ever.
The bigger picture
This lobbying effort follows a pattern seen across the UK market this year, where operators have already begun restructuring in response to the tax environment. Tenstar Media recently reported on how UK tax pressure is already reshaping operator headcount in its piece on Entain’s job cuts, which signalled that cost discipline is becoming a permanent feature of UK operations rather than a one-off response.
The General Betting Duty dispute also sits within a broader European pattern of governments turning to gambling as a revenue source. Treasuries from London to Rome are leaning more heavily on licensed operators to plug budget gaps, even as those same operators warn that further increases risk pushing activity towards unregulated channels. Whether the Chancellor heeds the BGC’s warning will be one of the clearer signals yet of how far governments are willing to go in squeezing a sector already absorbing one of its largest tax rises in years.
Sources
- SBC News – BGC’s big hitters ask for pause on UK general betting tax hike
- Next.io – UK operator CEOs call on chancellor to halt MGD and GBD tax hikes
- Gaming.net – Betting Chiefs Press Chancellor to Reject Further Gambling Tax Rises
- TheLines.com – Betfred Owners Take £30m Dividend Amid Betting Shop Closure Warnings
- Seaside Radio – Bookies In Last-ditch Plea To Healey To Avert Budget Tax Bombshell
- Racing Post – ‘We can least afford to lose them’
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