Remote Gaming Duty didn’t creep up this year. It nearly doubled overnight, jumping from 21% to 40% the moment the clock struck 1 April 2026.
Five months of results are in now, and they show exactly where that extra cost has landed. Not evenly across the industry, and not really on players either. Mostly on the operators writing the cheques to HMRC, while the companies supplying them the actual games have barely felt it.
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What Changed, and When
Britain’s Autumn Budget 2025 raised Remote Gaming Duty, the tax on profits from online casino games, from 21% to 40%, effective 1 April 2026.
A second increase follows in April 2027: a new 25% Remote Betting Duty on online sports wagering, up from 15%, with bets on UK horse-racing carved out at the old 15% rate.
The government scrapped in-person bingo duty entirely to soften the blow for the retail side of the industry. Treasury officials expect the changes to raise more than £1 billion a year once fully phased in.
Operators Are Footing the Bill
Operators’ cost estimates are stark.
Flutter Entertainment projected a $320 million hit to adjusted EBITDA in 2026 and $540 million in 2027, trimmed to roughly $235 million and $339 million after cost-cutting.
Entain put its own annual UK and Ireland cost at around £200 million, with a £100 million EBITDA impact expected this year alone.
Evoke, owner of William Hill and 888, estimated £125 to £135 million in added yearly costs and watched its shares drop as much as 18% when the change was first confirmed.
Rank Group did the cleanest math of the three: £46 million in extra duty, offset by £6 million from the scrapped bingo tax, for a net £40 million hit to operating profit. CEO John O’Reilly called it “a very significant blow to the regulated betting and gaming industry.”
The mitigation playbook has looked nearly identical across the sector: thinner marketing budgets, fewer promotions and free bets, and job losses.
Entain confirmed roughly 500 role cuts, about 2% of its global headcount. Evoke went further, warning of “thousands” of jobs disappearing “up and down the country” as it scales back UK investment. Evoke CEO Per Widerström didn’t mince words, calling the policy “ill-thought-through, counterproductive, and highly damaging.”
Suppliers Are Barely Feeling It
Here’s how the headline works. Remote Gaming Duty is charged on what a licensed operator earns from UK customers, not on what that operator pays a third-party studio for its games. When the tax bill doubles, the operator’s margin shrinks, but the supplier’s invoice doesn’t move. The money simply has less room to go around once it’s split between the two.
The share prices tell that story on their own. Through July, Playtech climbed over 18%, and Evolution rose more than 10%, both on strong trading updates, while Entain’s stock barely budged as a struggling joint venture dragged on its results. Evolution posted fourth-quarter revenue of €514.2 million across roughly 870 operator customers, with EBITDA margins still in the mid-60s, and Playtech actually raised its own full-year EBITDA guidance to around €270 million on the back of a strong H1 trading update.
That doesn’t mean suppliers are untouchable. Operators tightening their belts are scrutinising every vendor contract for measurable return, so the pressure hasn’t vanished; it’s just landed somewhere further down the value chain than most people expected.
For players watching operators quietly cut back on offers and promotions, it’s worth comparing what’s still on the table. Our full list of the best online casinos rounds up which UK-licensed sites are still competing hardest for new customers.
The Bigger Picture Isn’t Settled Yet
Analysts at Regulus Partners, reviewing operators covering roughly two-thirds of the market, found online gaming revenue actually grew around 12% through the first full quarter under the new rate, with betting broadly flat. That’s encouraging for an industry bracing for worse, but it comes with a real caveat: only one quarter has been reported under the 40% rate, the tougher 25% betting duty doesn’t land until April 2027, and there’s a genuine risk that thinner bonuses push some players toward offshore sites instead.
Flutter’s UK and Ireland CEO Kevin Harrington made that comparison directly, pointing out that at 40%, Britain’s rate now sits above the Netherlands, where a similar tax rise was followed by a documented uptick in illegal gambling.
Newly launched platforms tend to move first on welcome bonuses regardless of the tax environment, and our roundup of new casino sites tracks who’s just entered the UK market.
