Evoke warned this would happen if the government pressed ahead with its tax plans. It pressed ahead. Now 200 William Hill shops are closing and thousands of jobs are at risk.
Evoke had warned the UK government this would happen. When the Autumn Budget was published and the planned tax hikes were confirmed, the William Hill parent company made clear that up to 200 of its betting shops would become unviable if the increases went ahead. The increases went ahead. And on 31 March, employees across the William Hill retail estate were called into a company-wide meeting and told that 200 locations would be shutting from 24 May.
The number matches precisely what Evoke flagged as the worst-case scenario. That is not a coincidence. It is the direct and predictable consequence of a tax policy the company argued publicly it could not absorb at its current scale.
In a statement, an Evoke spokesperson said the closures followed a thorough review and reflected "increased cost pressures on the regulated sector including significant tax increases announced by the government in last year's Autumn Budget." The company added that the affected shops were "no longer sustainable" and committed to supporting employees facing redundancy, while framing the closures as necessary to protect investment in the remainder of the retail estate.
The scale of what is happening to Evoke goes well beyond a routine retail rationalisation. The business is carrying a £1.8 billion debt pile, a burden that makes it uniquely vulnerable to any increase in the cost base. Where larger, less leveraged competitors might absorb a tax hike through reduced margins or cross-subsidisation from more profitable divisions, Evoke has far less room to manoeuvre. The Autumn Budget did not create Evoke's problems, but it has accelerated the timeline considerably.
The backdrop to the shop closures is a full strategic review that Evoke initiated in December 2025. Reports indicate that Bally's Intralot is positioned as a potential acquirer of the majority of the company's assets, with a possible side arrangement involving Betfred also in the frame. Sources suggest the review is approaching a conclusion, which raises the question of whether the shop closure announcement is connected to that process, a deliberate pruning of the portfolio ahead of a transaction, or simply the inevitable consequence of an unsustainable cost structure playing out in real time.
Adding another layer to an already complex corporate situation, distressed assets specialist Ironshield Capital Management has acquired a 6.07% stake in the business. The involvement of a firm that specialises in distressed situations is rarely a signal of confidence in a company's near-term trajectory.
The tax environment that has pushed Evoke to this point is about to get significantly more challenging for the entire British gambling sector. Remote Gaming Duty, which covers online casino, rises from 21% to 40% from 1 April. That near-doubling of the online casino tax rate will reverberate across every operator with meaningful UK digital exposure. For businesses that rely on online casino revenue to cross-subsidise their sportsbook operations, the impact could be severe. Sports betting operators face a further blow in April 2027 when General Betting Duty climbs from 21% to 25%, completing a two-stage tax escalation that the industry has been bracing for since the Budget was announced.
Evoke's situation is the most acute because of its debt position, but it is not the only operator that will be counting the cost of these changes in the months ahead.
The Autumn Budget Has Claimed Its First Major Casualty
The closure of 200 William Hill shops is a landmark moment for the British gambling industry, and it should be understood as such. This is not a story about one company's mismanagement or an isolated business failure. It is the first concrete, large-scale consequence of a tax policy that the industry argued was unsustainable and the government chose to implement anyway. The fact that the closure number matches exactly what Evoke warned would happen removes any ambiguity about causation. Policymakers who argued the industry could absorb these increases now have a direct and visible counterargument: 200 closed shops, thousands of affected jobs and a major British retail brand in structural retreat.
Evoke's Debt Is the Multiplier That Makes Everything Worse
Most operators facing the same tax environment will adapt, restructure and survive. Evoke's £1.8 billion debt pile transforms a manageable challenge into an existential one. Debt at that level consumes cash that would otherwise fund adaptation, limits the strategic options available to management and makes the business acutely sensitive to any deterioration in trading conditions. The strategic review, the potential Bally's Intralot deal, the Ironshield stake purchase, all of these developments are downstream consequences of a capital structure that left the business with almost no margin for error when the external environment turned hostile. The lesson for the wider industry is that leverage is tolerable in benign conditions and potentially fatal when regulation and taxation tighten simultaneously.
The RGD Hike Could Reshape the Online Market Just as Dramatically
The shop closures are visible and immediate, but the rise in Remote Gaming Duty from 21% to 40% may ultimately prove the more consequential development for the British gambling landscape. Online casino is the highest-margin product in most operators' portfolios and the engine that funds much of the innovation, marketing and cross-subsidy that keeps the broader ecosystem functioning. Doubling the tax rate on that product does not just reduce profitability, it changes the economics of player acquisition, bonus structures and product investment fundamentally. Operators will need to reprice their businesses from the ground up, and the effects on consumer-facing products, from reduced bonuses to tighter odds, are likely to become apparent quickly. The full reckoning from 1 April is still ahead of us.
