BGC Bosses Urge Chancellor to Freeze 25% General Betting Duty
Six of Britain's biggest bookmakers want the Chancellor to freeze the planned General Betting Duty rise. Their ask: hold it until the taxes already in force have been properly measured. The date on the table is 1 April 2027. The letter to John Healey carries the signatures of bosses at Entain, Flutter UK & Ireland, bet365, Bally's Corporation, evoke and Betfred. It lands alongside the Betting and Gaming Council's broader campaign against a rumoured hike in Machine Games Duty.
GBD is set to climb from 15% to 25%. Two-thirds, on the headline rate. And it comes barely a year after Remote Gaming Duty nearly doubled, from 21% to 40%, back in April. Twelve months, operators argue, isn't enough time to read the numbers. Not when that window held the 2026 World Cup, the biggest sporting betting event on record.
Grainne Hurst, the BGC's chief executive, didn't dress it up. "Our members have delivered a stark warning to the Chancellor," she said. "Further tax rises will close more businesses, cost thousands more jobs and damage British sport, while potentially leaving the Treasury worse off."
The employment numbers behind that warning are already on the board. Over 600 betting shops have shut. Roughly 10,000 industry jobs have gone, or are slated to go, since Rachel Reeves announced the hikes in her November 2025 Autumn Budget. Real jobs, real livelihoods, businesses at the heart of communities across Britain, is how Hurst put it. Fresh rises, she added, "will only accelerate that decline."
Nowhere does the letter ask for the GBD increase to be scrapped outright. Breathing room is the request. For anyone pricing up UK-facing product, there's a practical read here. A 40% remote duty, a World Cup year, a congested market. That's a messy baseline. Twelve months of skewed data isn't a real financial year, and operators know it.
The political weather isn't helping either. Prime Minister Andy Burnham has made clear he isn't fond of betting shops on the high street. With his government in place, a pause on the GBD looks unlikely. Talk that MGD could double would thin that estate further still.
On MGD, Hurst pressed the point directly. "The industry is already grappling with the near doubling of Remote Gaming Duty," she said. "The Chancellor must rule out further tax rises at this Budget, including on Machine Games Duty, and pause the planned increase in General Betting Duty." Then the line the Treasury will have to answer: "You cannot tax businesses that have closed, and the Government risks destroying jobs and investment without raising a penny more for the Treasury."
Betfred's response was blunter still. A spokesperson said betting shops "up and down the land are under threat," warning that "once they are gone they are never coming back, taking thousands of jobs with them." Next marker to watch: the Budget reply.