GVC to Close 900 of Its Betting Shops in the UK

GVC Holdings, which owns and operates Ladbrokes and Coral shops in the UK, has said that they are planning to close 900 of their betting shops across the UK. Bookmakers in the UK are planning to shut their shops due to the stricter gambling regulations and declining revenue from operations in the domestic market.

Earlier in April, GVC had announced that they would be closing around 1000 betting shops putting 5000 jobs at risk. Last week, William Hill also announced that they would shut 700 of their betting shops putting 4500 jobs at risk.

“We now expect up to 900 shops to be at risk of closure, affecting up to 5,000 roles, over the next two years as a result of the reduction in maximum stakes on FOBTs to £2 that came into force on 1st April, and there are a number of shops that have been identified for closure as part of this process. This is not a decision we are taking lightly, and we will be working hard to minimize the number of redundancies through redeployment within the business while offering redundancy terms enhanced beyond the statutory requirement,” GVC said.