Paddy Power is closing up to 100 betting shops. Does it reach Gibraltar?
Paddy Power is closing betting shops and four hundred jobs are on the line. If you live in La Línea and work on the other side of the fence, the only question that matters is whether any of them are here. The company has answered half of that, and the half it did not answer is the interesting one.
On this page:
What was announced ·
Does it reach Gibraltar? ·
The number that does matter ·
Why this is a La Línea story ·
If you work in Gibraltar gaming ·
Sources
The short version
- Flutter announced on 3 September that it is reviewing its Paddy Power betting shops in the UK and Ireland. Up to 100 could close and around 400 jobs are at risk.
- No Gibraltar jobs are in that announcement. Flutter told Gibraltar’s national broadcaster the review covers its UK and Ireland shops only.
- Flutter was also asked whether separate cuts are being considered in Gibraltar. It did not answer.
- The number that matters on this side of the frontier is a different one. Gibraltar’s gambling sector has lost jobs in each of the last two annual counts — and the tax blamed for the shop closures only took effect on 1 April this year.
What was announced
On 3 September Flutter Entertainment, which owns Paddy Power, said it had begun a review of its betting shops in the UK and Ireland. Paddy Power runs 506 of them, 310 in the UK and 196 in Ireland. Up to 100 could close — roughly a fifth of the estate — putting around 400 jobs at risk.
Flutter’s own words on why:
The high street trading environment has been challenging for a number of years given rising costs, fierce competition, economic uncertainty and the shift to online, but we also face a material impact from the higher gambling taxes announced in last year’s UK budget.
The company said affected staff would be offered redeployment where possible, and that supporting them was its immediate priority.
The tax it is pointing at is Remote Gaming Duty. HM Revenue and Customs sets it out plainly: from 1 April 2026 the duty is charged at 40% of a gaming provider’s profits from remote gaming with UK customers. It was 21%.
Does any of this reach Gibraltar?
Not this announcement. GBC put the question to Flutter directly and reported the answer on 4 September: the review relates only to the retail estate in the UK and Ireland. Flutter acknowledged that it has a small operation in Gibraltar.
GBC also asked whether any separate job cuts are being considered in Gibraltar. Flutter did not address that question.
That is the honest state of it today. There is no Gibraltar figure in this story, and anyone telling you there is has gone further than the company has.
The number that does matter here
Paddy Power’s shops are a high street business. Gibraltar’s gaming industry is an online one, and it is the online side that the 40% duty lands on. So the shop closures are not the local story. The local story is what has been happening to Gibraltar gaming jobs while nobody was announcing anything.
The Gibraltar Government’s own Employment Survey counts every job on the Rock each October. This is what it records for the gambling and betting activities sub-industry:
| October | Jobs in gambling and betting | Change on the year |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 3,781 | — |
| 2024 | 3,536 | −245 (−6.5%) |
| 2025 | about 3,458 | −78 (−2.2%) |
The 2023 and 2024 figures are printed in the survey. The 2025 level is arithmetic: the survey reports the fall as 78 jobs, or 2.2%, without restating the total.
Two things are worth holding on to. The sector shed jobs in both years. And both counts were taken before the 40% duty came into force on 1 April 2026. Whatever that tax does to Gibraltar employment will first show up in the October 2026 survey, published early next year.
For scale, the same survey counted 32,206 employee jobs in Gibraltar in October 2025, up 1.8% on the year. So gaming is somewhere near one job in nine, in a labour market that was growing overall while gaming shrank.
Why this is a La Línea story
Because of who fills those jobs. The October 2025 survey counts 14,112 frontier worker jobs in Gibraltar — people who work on the Rock and live somewhere else. 9,374 of them are held by Spanish nationals. That is two thirds of the frontier workforce, and close to three in ten of every job in Gibraltar.
The survey does not break frontier workers down by industry, so there is no official figure for how many of the roughly 3,460 gaming jobs belong to people who cross the frontier each morning. Nobody publishes that number and it should not be guessed at. What can be said is that gaming is one of Gibraltar’s larger private employers, and that a very large share of Gibraltar’s private sector workforce commutes from this side of the fence.
If you work in Gibraltar gaming
Nothing in this week’s news requires you to do anything. But two points are worth knowing before they are urgent rather than after.
Your job is a Gibraltar job. If your employer is registered in Gibraltar and you work there, your contract, your notice and any redundancy process run under Gibraltar employment law and are handled by Gibraltar institutions — not by Spanish ones, and not by the fact that you sleep in La Línea. The Gibraltar Employment Service is the first place to ask, and anything with money attached to it is worth putting to a lawyer rather than to a colleague.
Your residency and tax position is a separate question from your employment one, and losing a job can move it. Registered frontier workers hold a status tied to being employed in Gibraltar. If that changes, it is worth checking where you stand rather than assuming the paperwork follows you.
This guide does not give legal advice and neither of those paragraphs is any. They are the two things to ask a professional about.
If you would rather not do this alone
Send us a message saying what you need and we will tell you what your options are. Somebody local handles the paperwork end of this for a living, speaks the language of the counter clerk that you and your translation app do not, and knows which window sends people home over a missing photocopy. Tell us what you are trying to do and we will come back to you.
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- Getting the cita previa, which is the part that actually stops people, and retrying until one comes.
- Filling the forms properly and telling you exactly which papers to bring.
- Going with you to the office when it helps to have somebody who can argue in Spanish.
- Empadronamiento and the other small steps nobody warns you about.
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Tell us what you need and we will quote you before anything starts — and if it is not something we can help with, we will say so rather than take the work. Government fees (the tasa) are separate and are always paid to the bank, never to us. We are not lawyers and we do not handle visa applications; this is practical help with the in-Spain steps, not legal advice.
What to watch
- Whether Flutter says anything about Gibraltar. It has been asked once and has not answered.
- The October 2026 Employment Survey, out early next year. It is the first count that will show what the 40% duty did to Gibraltar gaming jobs, and it will be a real number rather than a forecast.
- Any move by the Gibraltar Government on non-UK gaming markets. The duty only bites on profits from UK customers, so where operators sell matters as much as where they sit.
Sources
- Flutter Entertainment’s statement on the Paddy Power retail review, reported by the Racing Post, 3 September 2026 — shop numbers, jobs at risk, and the quoted statement.
- “Paddy Power cuts put 400 jobs at risk as Gibraltar impact remains unclear”, GBC, 4 September 2026 — Flutter’s confirmation that the review covers the UK and Ireland only, its acknowledgement of a small Gibraltar operation, and its non-answer on separate Gibraltar cuts.
- HM Revenue and Customs, Remote Gaming Duty (Excise Notice 455a) — 40% from 1 April 2026, previously 21%.
- HM Government of Gibraltar, Employment Survey Report 2025 (reference October 2025) — 32,206 employee jobs; 14,112 frontier worker jobs of which 9,374 Spanish; gambling and betting down 78 jobs (2.2%) on the year.
- HM Government of Gibraltar, Employment Survey Report 2024 (reference October 2024) — gambling and betting jobs 3,781 in October 2023 falling to 3,536 in October 2024, a fall of 245 (6.5%).
Figures are quoted from the sources listed above as they stood on 6 September 2026 and change without notice. This is a resident’s guide, not employment, tax or legal advice. If your job is affected, take advice from a professional before you rely on anything here.
