Genting Closes Its Coventry Casino and Warns More Will Follow if Machine Duty Rises

Genting has shut its Coventry casino after a month-long staff consultation, blaming costs and tax rises the sector has already absorbed. The closure lands four weeks before a Budget that may double Machine Games Duty, and both sides of that argument are already using it.

• Genting Casinos UK has closed its casino at the Skydome in Coventry after a 30-day consultation with staff that began on 1 September, saying the venue was "no longer commercially viable to sustain trading"
• The company blamed rising employment costs, business rates, energy costs, compliance spending and "increases in gaming taxation", and warned that any rise in Machine Games Duty "will force the closure of multiple venues across the country"
• Genting has said a doubling of the duty to 40% would make 13 of its 32 UK casinos unsustainable; the Betting and Gaming Council now says it would wipe out more than £50 million of planned casino investment
• Entain has launched its own campaign for betting shops, after the BGC's Back Our Betting Shops, while the Guardian has questioned whether the industry's closure warnings hold up
• Chancellor John Healey presents the Budget on 28 October; the Treasury has confirmed nothing about the duty

A Consultation That Began Before the Tax Debate Did

Genting Casinos UK has closed its casino in Coventry. The company said on 1 October that it had concluded a consultation with all colleagues at the venue and, "after exploring every available option", had decided to close it "as it is no longer commercially viable to sustain trading, compounded by wider commercial pressures facing the land-based casino sector", according to the statement carried by G3 Newswire. The casino opened in 2012 and employed 51 people, SBC News reported. Genting has not said when it stopped trading or whether any staff will be redeployed.

The 30-day consultation at the city-centre casino at the Skydome began on 1 September, the Coventry Telegraph reported at the time, when Genting said that "none of our other casinos are affected or involved in this process".

The statement puts the closure down to costs that have already arrived. "In recent years, casinos have absorbed substantial increases in employment costs, business rates, energy costs and regulatory compliance expenditure, alongside increases in gaming taxation," it said, without saying which taxes it meant. "These cumulative pressures have significantly reduced margins across the sector," a spokesperson added.

Then it turned to the Budget. "Any increase in Machine Games Duty will force the closure of multiple venues across the country, resulting in the loss of hundreds of skilled jobs," the spokesperson said, and argued that organised crime is "establishing illegal casinos on the high street", with the Gambling Commission having "raided five such venues since May". That is Genting's count; the most recent was a raid on four Manchester properties on 21 September.

Paul Willcock, chief executive of Genting Casinos UK, told NEXT.io that "you can't tax a casino that has closed", and that illegal gambling "is not a problem that can be solved through enforcement alone". Last week he wrote that a rise in the duty from 20% to 40% would add about £16 million a year to Genting's costs and make 13 of its 32 casinos "unprofitable or unsustainable", putting more than 850 venue jobs and around 50 support roles at risk. Genting has not published the modelling or named the venues.

The Trade Body, Entain and the Guardian Weigh In

The Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) cited the closure on 2 October, warning that casino operators are preparing more than £200 million of investment after the government's casino modernisation reforms and that doubling the duty would "immediately wipe out more than £50 million" of it, based on the plans of four large operators. It named projects of £8 million in Bristol and £5 million each in Cardiff and Bournemouth, plus Genting's planned redevelopment of the London Trocadero. It has not published the underlying analysis.

Entain, which owns Ladbrokes and Coral, has launched a "What's at Stake" campaign for betting shops, InterGame reported. Britain's betting shops "employ around 26,600 people", the campaign says, and closures would mean fewer local jobs and less funding for British racing, with some customers choosing "to bet elsewhere, including with operators outside the UK's regulatory system". Chief executive Stella David has written to Prime Minister Andy Burnham, according to InterGame; the Guardian reports that the letter warns of job cuts across Entain's 2,300 shops.

The Guardian tested those warnings on 2 October. The Social Market Foundation, which proposed the rise, estimates it would raise £275 million to £460 million a year on top of the roughly £610 million the duty collected last year, the paper reported. It noted that Betfred has threatened to close nearly 1,000 shops since 2019 while its estate has shrunk by only about 330, and that adult gaming centres increased their takings from £528 million to £613 million last year. The adult gaming centre operator Merkur has offered to buy some of the 132 shops Betfred put up for sale. Simon Thomas, chief executive of the Hippodrome Casino in London, told the paper he had shelved a £6 million rooftop expansion because of the uncertainty.

Coventry Is Evidence About Today's Costs, Not About a 40% Duty

The Coventry consultation began on 1 September, a week before The Times reported that the Treasury was modelling a doubling of the duty. Genting's statement lists costs that have already landed, and the duty's standard rate is still 20%. The closure cannot fairly be counted as a casualty of a tax that has not been set, and the industry risks overclaiming if it presents it that way. But it is evidence the Treasury should weigh: a casino that opened in 2012 has stopped being viable at the current rate. If some of the estate is already at the margin, the venues a higher duty would tip over are not hypothetical, which is the strongest version of Genting's 13-casino claim. That claim stays unverifiable until the company shows which venues it means.

The Guardian's Real Point Is Substitution, Not Closure

The duty is levied on machine takings in casinos, bingo clubs, betting shops and adult gaming centres alike, and the Guardian's figures suggest the sector does not shrink evenly: adult gaming centres grew their takings by about 16% last year, and one of them is bidding for Betfred's surplus shops. A uniform rise could move machine play from casinos and bookmakers, which carry staff, security and table-game overheads, towards the lower-cost venues Burnham has criticised most. That would be an odd result for a measure its advocates present as harm policy, and it is the question the Treasury's modelling needs to answer, rather than the job numbers each side is trading.

Casinos Are Making the Investment Case, and It Is the More Testable One

Betting shops are arguing community; casinos are arguing capital. The BGC's £50 million ties the tax to named projects in named cities, which is easier to check than a forecast of closures, and it is aimed at a government that sold casino modernisation on the promise of investment. The same week, the Gambling Commission confirmed new rules for gaming machines that will add their own costs from 2027. Rank and Genting have now each put a third or more of their estates on the table.

Genting closed a casino it says was already unviable, then used it to argue against a tax that has not yet been set. Both things can be true, and the Treasury has four weeks to decide which matters more.