William Hill

The Ladbrokes and Coral owner puts the Budget's five-point rise in duty on its shop machines at about £25 million a year before mitigation, an eighth of its estimate for last year's online tax rises. It expects to offset it all by the end of 2028 and has left its guidance unchanged.

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.

The Times reports that the Chancellor will lift the main rate of machine duty by five points at next week's Budget, a quarter more than today but well short of the doubling campaigners wanted. Nothing is confirmed, the industry says any rise will cost jobs, and Rank's shares rose after the report.

A Racing Post count of every British race title shows bookmakers sponsoring 17% fewer races this year, with the cuts deepening after Remote Gaming Duty went to 40% in April. It lands three weeks before a Budget that may raise machine games duty, which would hit racing harder.

The Upper Tribunal has ruled that free spins won on a free promotional game fall outside Remote Gaming Duty, reversing the First-tier Tribunal and wiping out the assessment against the Super Group subsidiary. With the duty now at 40%, the ruling reaches well beyond one operator, unless HMRC appeals or Parliament changes the law.

Sarah Gardner used Allwyn's player protection conference to welcome the National Lottery's interim chief executive, five weeks after two MPs asked the regulator what it knew about him. She also warned that the Lottery's standing is "a high wire act where one wrong step can cause big problems".

A contract from the Casino Secrets leak shows the racing pictures and data supplier agreed in 2022 to serve Santeda's brands for a share of their revenue, according to the Guardian. Its owners include bookmakers that have repeatedly warned about the illegal market, and Entain says it has raised its concerns with SIS.

The Betfred founder has put numbers on the Treasury's option: 45% of his estate, 2,475 jobs, £66.8m of tax and £15.8m of racing funding, in a Sunday Times op-ed and a Financial Times interview in which he says machines are half of shop profit. Betfred has already ended its Super League sponsorship, citing last year's Budget.

A $400m term loan and a $160m delayed draw fund pre-construction on the $4bn Ferry Point project and give the group liquidity, from the private credit firm that also refinanced The Star in June.

Around 300 of the roles are in Stoke-on-Trent, where bet365 is the biggest private employer, and 40 across Gibraltar and Malta. Voluntary redundancies come first. Every one of the five largest British gambling firms has now cut staff since remote gaming duty rose 19 points.

Chancellor John Healey is said to be weighing an increase to the duty on gaming machines, a year after remote gaming duty went from 21% to 40%. A doubling would take the three bands to 10%, 40% and 50%, and analysts have told the Racing Post it would cost nearly 3,000 betting shops and around £70m of the racing levy.

Researchers audited every one of the 624 gambling websites licensed in Britain and found dark patterns on 86% of consent banners, no reject option on 24%, and personal data being processed before consent on two-thirds. A second, randomised study then showed the most common banner design measurably pushes people into sharing data they did not want to share.

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.

Two years after splitting itself in half to become a pure technology supplier, GiG is paying €16.4 million for a majority stake in an African operator, funded by an €8.5 million raise it launched the same morning it reported an operating loss of €6.9 million.

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.

The vote was close to unanimous on the shares, and the scheme now needs only the Gibraltar court. It puts William Hill, 888 and Mr Green into the same group as Bally's Intralot's lottery and gaming technology business, with completion expected late this year or early next.

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.

Entain has published its interim results for the first half of 2025, with the FTSE-listed operator pointing to momentum in its UK and Irish retail business and continued progress at its BetMGM joint venture in the United States. The results arrive at a sensitive moment for the group, which is navigating a shifting UK regulatory landscape and a period of strategic repositioning following several years of turbulence.

Rank Group has delivered a standout set of full-year results against a difficult backdrop for UK-listed operators, growing underlying like-for-like net gaming revenue 6% to £834.1 million and lifting underlying profit by 21%. The figures suggest the Grosvenor and Mecca owner has absorbed the initial impact of the tax hikes that have rattled rivals.

Bally's Intralot has struck a roughly £243.1 million all-share deal for Evoke, the operator behind William Hill and 888, in a consolidation play sharpened by the steep rise in [British gambling taxes](/regulatory-map) landing over the next two years. The terms hand Evoke shareholders a 77% premium and hand the enlarged group a place among the United Kingdom's largest online operators.

Flutter Entertainment will cancel its London listing on 3 August 2026 and trade only on the NYSE, formalising a pivot to a US business that now supplies 41% of group revenue. The exit lands amid a brutal UK tax squeeze, but Flutter's own filings suggest growth and investors, not duty rises, are what pulled it west.

Four years after 888 Holdings, now Evoke, agreed to pay £2.2 billion for William Hill's international assets, the company has agreed an all-share takeover by Bally's Intralot worth about £243.1 million (€281 million). A November 2025 Budget tax shock forced the board's hand.

A business bought for £2.2 billion less than four years ago may be about to change hands for a tenth of that price. The Bally's Intralot bid for Evoke is the most significant corporate development in British gambling for years.

The return of 888 to the Netherlands via a ComeOn Group licence has triggered formal parliamentary scrutiny. The answers could reshape how the Dutch regulator assesses the history of operators seeking market access through third-party arrangements.