Betting giant Flutter to axe up to 1,400 jobs in UK and Ireland as tax hike bites

Oct 20 (Reuters) - Betting giant Flutter Entertainment plans to cut up to 1,400 jobs across its UK and Ireland business, it said on Tuesday, blaming a sharp increase in British gaming taxes that it said had fundamentally altered the economics of the regulated betting industry. 

Flutter is the latest and largest operator to cut jobs as the sector grapples with the most significant tax overhaul in its recent history, with other companies warning of hundreds of millions of dollars in lost earnings.

Cuts of 1,400 personnel would represent almost 16% of the workforce across Flutter's UK and Ireland business. 

Ladbrokes owner Entain last month outlined plans to cut about 20% of customer care roles, two months after it said it would remove 500 roles to offset the impact of higher taxes. It also sent a letter to British Prime Minister Andy Burnham to voice concerns over any further tax increases on the sector.

"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," Flutter's UK and Ireland CEO, Kevin Harrington, said in a statement.

Flutter, which owns Paddy Power, Sky Bet and Betfair, said the restructuring would affect staff in Leeds and Dublin, as well as UK and Ireland employees at its hubs in Porto, Portugal, and Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

The company expects the restructuring to cost between $80 million and $90 million, with the charges incurred in the fourth quarter of this year. 

Flutter employs 28,500 people globally including 9,000 who work in the UK and Ireland business. 

(Reporting by Yamini Kalia in BengaluruEditing by Shilpi Majumdar, Leroy Leo and David Goodman)