Betting Tax Rises Squeeze Betfred’s Marketing and Retail Plans
Betfred has confirmed what rugby league followers had been braced for since the summer: its nine-year run as Super League’s title sponsor ends this season. The announcement lands alongside a fresh warning from founder Fred Done that further tax rises could wipe out betting shops on the British high street entirely, and while both stories are rooted in retail betting, the tax change behind them reaches straight into the online casino products UK players use every day.
What’s been announced
Founder Fred Done confirmed the end of Betfred’s Super League backing in a piece for the Sunday Times, tying the decision directly to the tax environment facing his business.
Done, who described Betfred’s decision to shut 132 shops earlier this year as “like killing your own babies”, said the company’s move to cut ties with the Super League was heartbreaking, explaining that a combination of wage inflation and tax rises had already forced the closure of 132 shops with no choice left.
Betfred’s title partnerships of the Super League, Challenge Cup and England Rugby League will conclude at the end of the 2026 season, bringing a close to one of the most significant commercial relationships in the sport’s recent history.
Done paired that news with a broader warning about the future of betting shops.
Betfred founder Fred Done has warned that more betting shops will close and forecast there will be none left on the high street by 2030.
Chancellor John Healey is reportedly considering raising machine games duty, and if it rises from 20 per cent to 40 per cent, Done said Betfred would shut 495 shops, causing the loss of 2,575 jobs and £67 million in tax revenue.
What’s changed
The pressure Done is describing isn’t limited to fruit machines in shops.
Rachel Reeves raised Remote Gaming Duty from 21% to 40% in the Autumn 2025 Budget, a levy that applies to online casino games, with the new rate taking effect in April 2026.
A new 25 per cent duty on online sports betting is also due from 2027, covering all sports except horse racing.
Those two increases together explain why operators are now scrutinising every part of their spend, from shop leases to shirt sponsorships to the promotional budgets that fund welcome offers and free spins on their casino apps.
Betfred’s own chief executive has already linked the shop closures to this wider cost picture.
Chief executive Jo Whittaker tied the decision to costs rather than trading, saying the combined impact of higher employer national insurance contributions, wage inflation, increases in gambling taxes and wider economic uncertainty had left the company with no choice.
Betfred isn’t alone in feeling it either, with rival operators citing the same duty rise as they trim their own retail and marketing footprints.
Where it fits
For players who stick to Betfred’s online casino and sportsbook rather than its shops, nothing changes overnight in terms of the games on offer. But the direction of travel is worth watching. As Remote Gaming Duty absorbs a bigger slice of every online casino wager, operators across the market are under more pressure than ever to make marketing pounds work harder, which tends to show up in tighter promotions and slower rollout of high-cost exclusives rather than in the product itself. Betfred’s retreat from one of British sport’s longest-running sponsorship deals is a visible marker of that squeeze, and with more tax changes reportedly still under consideration in the coming Budget, it’s likely to be the first of several similar recalibrations from major UK operators before the year is out.
Sources
- SBC News – Betting taxes blamed as Betfred calls time on Super League support
- SBC News – Betfred founder predicts death of high street betting by 2030
- Racing Post – ‘I believe that by 2030 we will have no betting shops’
- iGaming Express – Betfred Warns Tax Hikes Could Close 495 Shops
- Gambling.com – Betfred Super League Deal Runs To End Of 2026 Season
- Super League – RL Commercial confirm Betfred partnership to end
