57 UK and Irish Paddy Power Shops to Close In Second Cull

by Roy Brindley, 17 October 2025

Paddy Power has announced it is closing a significant number of betting shops in the UK and Ireland.

Flutter Entertainment has announced it is preparing to close 57 Paddy Power betting shops in the UK and Ireland. 247 staff will be affected by the cull.

Key Facts:

• 57 UK and Irish Paddy Power betting shops set to close.
• The announcement came two years after an initial Irish shop cull.
• Other major operators suggest closures are inevitable if the general betting tax increases.

Fans of high street bookmakers were dealt a blow on Thursday when Flutter Entertainment announced it was preparing to close 29 Paddy Power betting shops in the UK and a further 28 in the Republic of Ireland.

247 staff – 128 in the UK, 119 in the Republic of Ireland – are now at risk of losing their jobs. The company has not confirmed which shops will close or provided firm dates for their closure.

In October 2023, Paddy Power announced it was closing 21 betting shops in the Republic of Ireland, with 78 staff being affected. No timeframe was given then, but history shows that earmarked retail outlets were closed swiftly.

Painting a Gloomy Picture by Numbers

Listed on the New York Stock Exchange (primary listing) with a secondary listing on the London Stock Exchange, Paddy Power’s parent company, Flutter Entertainment, is headquartered in Dublin.

Within horse racing circles, it recently made headlines for withdrawing its funding for Champions: Full Gallop, the docuseries currently airing on ITV. It has also teamed up with The British Horseracing Authority to launch a Dragon’s Den-style horse racing summit seeking solutions to attract a new generation of racegoers.

Neither the media centre nor the press release areas of Flutter’s corporate site mention the impending cutbacks. A January 2025 Modern Slavery Statement stated Flutter operated 576 betting shops in the UK and Ireland at the time.

The UK and Irish betting shop landscape has been severely depleted, from around 9,000 to 5,900 in the UK during the past decade. Concurrently, Irish shop numbers have fallen from circa 900 to 700.

There’s not been a press release on it since October 2023’s announcement of 21 shop closures – but an alarming number of Paddy Power’s Irish shops appear to have been shuttered during the past 6 months. pic.twitter.com/AAqUESxB4E

— Sports & Betting History by BestBettingSites (@BettingSitesCom) January 2, 2025

Further Shop Losses Hinge on Budget

Alarmingly, talking to The Times earlier this month, Entain’s CEO, Stella David, appeared to suggest a six-percentage point rise in general betting duty (to match that of remote gaming duty) at the next Budget would make Ladbrokes and Coral betting shop closures inevitable.

Similarly, Evoke, owner of the William Hill betting chain, is reportedly preparing to close 200 of its 1,300 shops – putting 1,500 jobs at risk – should the UK government make gambling tax rises at the next Budget. The company had previously reported a five per cent drop in retail revenue from its UK and Irish estates during its last financial year.

In March, Evoke’s share price fell dramatically when it announced revenue growth in the first quarter would be below the group’s full-year target. Several factors were blamed, including the introduction of safer gambling measures and punter-friendly sports results.