Entain Puts 400 Customer Care Jobs Into Consultation and Blames the Tax Rises

The Ladbrokes owner says up to a fifth of its 2,000 customer care roles could go, weeks after an H1 that beat expectations and days after its chief executive wrote to the Prime Minister about machine games duty. The cuts are global; the argument is aimed at 28 October.

• Entain has begun a consultation that could remove up to 400 of its roughly 2,000 customer care roles, which it says is part of addressing "the impact of increased UK gambling taxes", according to the company's statement reported by the Guardian and NEXT.io
• NEXT.io understands the changes cover 11 hubs worldwide, including the United Kingdom and Gibraltar, that no front-line player safety roles are affected, and that the rationalisation follows years of acquisitions leaving teams in "sub-optimal locations"
• Chief executive Stella David wrote to Prime Minister Andy Burnham on 11 September arguing that doubling the standard rate of machine games duty from 20% to 40% would add about £100 million to the cost of running Entain's UK shops
• The company cites industry-commissioned EY modelling that a 40% rate would close 1,470 betting shops and cost 15,900 jobs; the Social Market Foundation, which proposed the rise, says it would raise £275 million to £458 million on top of the £600 million category B machines pay
• Entain reported H1 underlying operating profit of £479 million in August, 2% lower but ahead of expectations, cut 500 corporate and technology jobs in July, and leaves the FTSE 100 this month

A Fifth of Customer Care, Six Weeks Before the Budget

Entain said on Wednesday it is "simplifying its Customer Care model across multiple locations as part of its ongoing efforts to address the impact of increased UK gambling taxes", and has begun a consultation process that could result in the removal of up to 400 of its approximately 2,000 customer care roles, according to the statement as reported by NEXT.io and the Guardian. Chief executive Stella David said the proposed changes were "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", and that the decision "has not been made lightly".

The cuts are not confined to Britain. NEXT.io understands the rationalisation affects 11 hubs globally, including the UK and Gibraltar, and follows a series of acquisitions that left customer care distributed across locations the company now regards as sub-optimal. An internal email obtained by the outlet, sent under new chief operating officer Hugo Gonzalez, describes a review that "highlighted opportunities to reduce complexity, clarify roles and responsibilities, and create a more consistent global organisation". Sources told NEXT.io that no player safety teams, meaning roles focused on front-line customer interventions, are affected, and that the restructuring "would likely have happened in any case", with the UK tax rises making it "more drastic than it might otherwise have been".

The timing is not accidental. Chancellor John Healey delivers his first Budget on 28 October, and the Treasury is reported to be modelling an increase in machine games duty on the £2-a-spin category B machines found in betting shops and adult gaming centres, an idea the Social Market Foundation proposed and that former prime minister Gordon Brown has backed. The proposal would double each MGD band: the lower rate from 5% to 10%, the standard rate from 20% to 40% and the higher rate from 25% to 50%, according to SBC News. The Guardian reports the think tank's estimate that doubling the duty on category B machines would raise between £275 million and £458 million a year on top of the £600 million they currently pay.

The Letter to Downing Street

David wrote to Prime Minister Andy Burnham on Friday, 11 September, NEXT.io reports, invoking the "Makerfield Test", the government's stated principle that national policy should deliver for places long overlooked by Westminster. "A substantial increase in MGD would therefore bear directly on many of the people and places the Makerfield Test is intended to support," she wrote, arguing that many of Entain's more than 2,300 shops "have been part of their local communities for decades". Doubling the standard rate would add "around £100m" to the annual cost of running Entain's retail business, she said, and she cited Betting and Gaming Council-commissioned modelling by EY that a 40% rate would lead to 1,470 shop closures and 15,900 job losses across the industry.

"We are not asking to be insulated from taxation," the letter continued, describing Entain as one of the UK's top 20 taxpayers, before listing the rises already legislated: remote gaming duty from 21% to 40% from April this year, and a new 25% rate of general betting duty on most remote betting from April 2027. Burnham has previously backed Brown's proposal to fund the end of the two-child benefit cap through higher gambling taxes, the Guardian notes.

The BGC's chief executive Grainne Hurst called the proposed job losses "yet more evidence of the real-world consequences of piling costs onto the regulated industry", and said further rises would "hand an advantage to the unsafe, unregulated illegal gambling market". Entain's shares, down about 36% this year, fell 1% in early trading; the company drops out of the FTSE 100 at this month's review.

The Cuts Are Global and Structural, and the Argument Is Domestic and Fiscal

Entain's own account, as reported, is that the customer care model was going to be rationalised anyway after years of acquisitions, and that tax made it sharper. Eleven hubs, Gibraltar included, and an email about "a more consistent global organisation" describe a company consolidating a function it had let sprawl, which is what any operator of its size would do with or without the Treasury. Presenting that as a consequence of UK duty is not false, but it is selective, and it lands six weeks before a Budget decision the company is lobbying hard on. The number that matters for the MGD argument is the one Entain has published for its shops, £100 million, not the number of customer care seats in Gibraltar.

The Industry Has Learned to Price Its Warnings in Jobs

Last year the sector argued remote gaming duty in terms of black-market leakage and lost the argument; the channelisation paper Entain commissioned this month is an attempt to make that case better. The MGD fight is being run differently, in shop closures and redundancies, because those are the units a prime minister who has set himself a "Makerfield Test" has to count. A consultation announced the same week the letter lands gives the argument a live example. It is also a real cost to 400 people, and the two things are true at once. The Treasury's difficulty is that the 1,470 shops figure is industry-commissioned modelling, and it has heard the same sector's forecasts before.

Retail Is Where the Next Tax Bites, and Where the Politics Are Hardest

Online duty rose and the industry absorbed it with job cuts and a share price down a third. Machine games duty falls on the high street, on staffed premises in the constituencies the government says it wants to protect, and that is precisely why Entain has chosen the Makerfield framing. Betfred warned of closures last autumn and shops have closed since; a doubled MGD would make the marginal shop uneconomic in a way a remote duty rise never could. If the Chancellor wants the £275 million to £458 million the think tank has priced, he will have to decide whether the shops that close are an acceptable cost, and Entain has just made sure he cannot say nobody told him.

Entain has given the Prime Minister a number and the Chancellor a headline. On 28 October the Budget will show which of them was listening.