Sunderland jobs at risk at gaming firm Tombola as parent company proposes cuts
Dozens of Sunderland jobs could be lost after an international betting and gaming operator announced changes are being made to its business model.
Flutter UK & Ireland - which owns a number of gaming sites including PaddyPower and SkyBet - announced on Tuesday that 15 percent of its UK workforce could be lost.
Flutter is also the parent company of Sunderland-founded Tombola, which has an office in Low Street employing around 800 people.
There is no confirmation about how many Sunderland jobs are at risk although the figure is thought to be less than 100.
It has also been suggested that around 1,400 redundancies could be made across the UK and Ireland, with Flutter blaming soaring increases in betting and gaming duties announced by the Government last year.
Ministers announced in last year’s autumn budget that remote gaming duty would increase from 21 percent to 40 percent from April 1 of this year.
Flutter chief executive, Kevin Harrington, said: “My immediate focus is providing the necessary support for all of our impacted colleagues and guiding our teams through what we know is going to be a difficult and challenging period for all concerned.
“The material increase in betting and gaming duties announced in the UK Budget last year has fundamentally changed the economic model of the regulated betting and gaming industry in the UK while helping to fuel the unlicensed, unregulated market.
“As we warned a year ago, we cannot fully absorb a rise of this magnitude without reducing our fixed cost base and therefore must restructure our business so that we can best position ourselves for the future.
“We remain confident that we are well placed to benefit from share gains given our position as the largest scale operator in the UK.”
According to Flutter, the company is facing an additional $540m of taxes next year because of April’s changes.