Ireland: all our coverage

The owner of William Hill, 888 and Mr Green reported a 2% like-for-like revenue fall for the third quarter, after 2% growth in the first half, in a brief update with no divisional figures, no profit number and no guidance. Its chief executive used it to lobby the Treasury five days before the Budget.

Ireland's gambling regulator has now published 235 notices of intent to apply for a licence, and most of the recent ones come from racecourse and high-street bookmakers whose Revenue licences expire on 30 November. Its own register shows how far it still has to go: one in-person betting licence issued so far.

Paddy Power's owner expects up to 1,400 redundancies from a restructure of its UK and Ireland business, eight days before a Budget that could raise machine duty. The tax set the size and the timing; the shape looks like the cost programme Flutter was already running.

Twelve days before the Budget, Halesowen MP Alex Ballinger and 89 Labour colleagues have asked the Chancellor for a new, higher duty rate on the Category B machines in adult gaming centres, betting shops and casinos. The letter cites a 40% rate without asking for one, and the industry says any rise would close venues and "kill the British seaside".

Entain's British online business grew 14% under the new 40% gaming duty, while customer-friendly football results and a Brazilian unit that shrank by more than a third before the ban held the group to 2%. Guidance survives with profit pinned to the bottom of the range, and the chief executive used the update to lobby the government before the Budget.

The Irish Presidency's revised negotiating box for the EU's 2028 to 2034 budget lists five new revenue sources, and a levy on online gambling is not among them. Europe's racing bodies, who had asked Dublin days earlier to keep horserace betting out of any such levy, welcomed the omission but warn the idea still has strong support in the European Parliament.

Budget 2027 left Ireland's 2% tax on stakes untouched and gave racing €2.9 million more, on condition of welfare and integrity reform. The one new betting measure is a 25% charge on pool betting commissions, written for a market the new regulator is about to open up.

DraftKings and FanDuel gave $3.5 million each in the latest reporting period, taking Tax Relief Nebraska's fundraising to $14.65 million for two online sports betting measures on the 3 November ballot. The committee registered to oppose them had reported nothing raised or spent by the same date, on Ballotpedia's count.

Communities Minister Gordon Lyons told the Assembly that a review of the 2022 update to Northern Ireland's 1985 gambling law is expected next year, and that the Bill to regulate online gambling will be for a future Minister. Four years after Royal Assent, the 2022 Act's levy power has still not been brought into operation.

Replying to Fred Done's forecast of 495 Betfred closures, Kenny told the Financial Times he used "the same script" himself when he represented bookmakers. He wants machines and online slots taxed harder than bets on sport.

The "world's largest" online casino has shut its whole site to Irish users and says it will apply for a licence, while the regulator says two prediction markets and a major platform have geo-blocked and deposits are being refunded.

Flutter has put a number on the retail review it declined to quantify in August. Up to 100 of 506 shops go before the end of the year, with about 400 jobs at risk, and the company names the Budget.

Dawn Butler and Iain Duncan Smith have written to the Gambling Commission about the National Lottery's incoming interim chief executive, citing the personal sanction he received in 2024 and a board seat at Britain's third-largest slot arcade chain.

Vidler leaves after almost three years, having taken The National Lottery through its Fourth Licence transition. Her interim replacement comes from the commercial betting sector rather than the lottery world, which is a choice worth noticing.

Ireland's Gambling Regulatory Authority has opened a public consultation on three foundational sets of regulations covering which games operators may offer, what records they must keep, and what account information they must proactively share with players. Submissions close on 20 August 2026, with final rules to follow.

Ireland's new gambling regulator has begun issuing statutory licences, switching on the regime built under the Gambling Regulation Act 2024 and starting the long transition from a fragmented legacy system to a single supervised market.

Flutter Entertainment will leave the London Stock Exchange at the start of August and trade solely on the New York Stock Exchange, formalising a shift in centre of gravity that its FanDuel-led US business had already made in substance.

With a full estate sale off the table and cost pressures mounting, Entain is cutting deep in Ireland. The retail betting shop is becoming an endangered species on both sides of the Irish Sea.

Sky Bet, a major brand under the Flutter Entertainment umbrella, has shifted its sports betting operations headquarters to Malta. This structural change,

Virgin Bet, the online sports betting brand operated by Livescore Group, has secured a major new broadcast partnership with TNT Sports. The deal will see the

Global gaming giant Entain Plc has upgraded its full-year earnings forecast after a strong first-half performance, signalling that the strategic changes

Flutter Entertainment's UK and Ireland division has confirmed a customer data incident impacting its prominent Paddy Power and Betfair brands. The breach,

The Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland (GRAI) is now set to consider implementing a tiered licensing fee structure and a five-year licence term. This