Taxing an Industry Out of Business: What Is at Stake
The Irish Bookmakers Association has made its submission to the Minister for Finance ahead of Budget 2027. Our position is clear – after a decade of contraction for the retail betting sector in Ireland, and at the very start of a new regulatory regime, the priority for this Budget should be stability.
The last increase is still closing shops
Betting duty was doubled from 1% to 2% in Budget 2019. The increase was announced in October 2018 and took effect the following January, and shops began closing from the moment it was announced, because operators already trading on thin margins knew they could not absorb it.
Since then, 222 betting shops have closed in Ireland, taking roughly 1,000 retail jobs with them. Shop numbers have fallen from 1,385 in 2008 to just 643 today, less than half the estate that traded before the financial crisis.
The pace is accelerating rather than easing. There were 47 closures in 2025 and 41 already in 2026.
Betting duty now exceeds retail net profit
Across the retail sector the picture is the same. In 2018, retail bookmakers made net profit of €87m and paid €28m in betting duty. By 2025 the profit had fallen to €25m while the duty bill had risen to €45m. Betting duty now costs retail bookmakers more than 180% of their entire net profit.
More closures are coming
At the start of May 2026, one large operator closed 39 shops in a single move. At the beginning of September 2026, one of the largest multiple operators confirmed that up to 100 of its shops across Britain and Ireland are under review for closure before the end of the year, with around 400 roles at risk.
No split between the two markets has been published. On a proportionate basis, industry expects 40 or more of those closures to fall in Ireland. If that happens, 2026 will have seen more than 80 Irish betting shops close in a single calendar year, before any Budget decision is taken.
The reasons given were rising rents, rates and energy costs, the near doubling of remote gaming duty in Britain, and the continuing shift online. Those are the same pressures Irish operators are carrying, with the difference that the Irish sector is also absorbing the cost of a brand new licensing regime.
Now is not the time to be adding cost
Licensed operators are now paying for the regulatory framework created by the Gambling Regulation Act 2024. The IBA supported the establishment of the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland and supports a properly regulated market. But the full cost of that regime is not yet known, and adding taxation on top of it before anyone can measure the effect is not sound policy.
Licensing fees
Payable to GRAI by every licensed operator, retail and remote.
Compliance and reporting
New systems, new reporting obligations and new record keeping requirements.
Staff training
Training and operational adjustments across the entire estate.
Social Impact Levy
An additional contribution, with the scale and impact not yet established.
Platform development
Product restrictions on free bets, stake and win limits, and advertising rules.
Remote licensing only began in July 2026
The effect of these measures cannot be assessed before the Budget is decided.
The black market is the only winner
Every euro of additional cost on a licensed operator has to be recovered somewhere, usually through reduced odds and reduced value for customers. Unlicensed operators recover nothing, because they pay no duty, no levy and no compliance cost, and they offer none of the consumer protections that licensed operators are required to provide.
Even a relatively small increase in cost or taxation within the licensed market materially increases the attractiveness of illegal alternatives. The evidence from comparable markets is already in.
United Kingdom
Up to £500m of the expected yield from its gambling tax increase is forecast to be lost through substitution into the illicit market.
Netherlands
The Dutch regulator has publicly acknowledged that its own tax and regulatory measures benefited the illegal market, while returns to the Exchequer fell.
Ireland
A 2026 Irish Times and Investigate Europe investigation found black market sites taking bets from Irish customers with no age or identity checks. One network alone ran 140 casinos, 114 of them blacklisted by European regulators.
The cost gap between licensed and unlicensed operators
Research in Great Britain estimates that roughly one in twelve consumers used illegal operators or related channels in the past year, with around £2.7b staked annually outside the regulated market. A tax increase intended to raise revenue can reduce it, by moving activity to operators who contribute nothing at all and who answer to no regulator.
What the sector already contributes
The gambling sector contributes well over €325m a year to the Exchequer in betting duty, VAT and payroll taxes, and employs more than 6,000 people, many of them in small towns and villages where alternative employment is limited. Betting duty alone raised €113.7m in 2025.
Each shop closure removes roughly 4.5 full time roles, around €5,800 per employee in PAYE, USC and PRSI, and an estimated €50,000 a year in betting duty. The 39 closures in May 2026 alone are estimated to have cost the Exchequer about €3m a year in lost taxes. Shop closures do not raise revenue. They remove it.
Bookmakers are also a significant funder of horse and greyhound racing through media rights paid on turnover. Displacement of that turnover to the illegal market, and further shop closures, reduce that revenue stream directly. In the UK, one operator has already cited the recent tax increase as the reason for ending a sponsorship of more than 50 years at the Cheltenham Festival.
What the IBA is asking for in Budget 2027
Maintain betting duty at 2%
The current rate already exceeds the net profit of the retail sector. It should not be increased.
No new financial burdens during the transition
Licensed operators are absorbing the cost of a new regulatory regime that is only months old.
Assess the regime before changing it
Allow the full impact of the Gambling Regulation Act 2024, including the Social Impact Levy, to be measured first.
Include retail bookmakers in SME supports
Licensed betting shops are excluded from cost of business supports by a categorisation anomaly rather than by policy intent. De Minimis relief should also be maintained and, where possible, increased to the maximum threshold permitted under EU rules.
The bottom line
The lesson from every comparable market is the same. Where the licensed sector is taxed beyond what its margins can carry, the activity does not stop. It moves to operators who pay nothing, protect nobody, and cannot be regulated.
Maintaining a stable and competitive licensed market is what protects consumers, protects employment in towns and villages across the country, and protects Exchequer revenues over the longer term.
Sources: Revenue Commissioners betting duty receipts 2025; Satellite Information Services shop numbers; Central Statistics Office; operator data provided to the Irish Bookmakers Association. Job losses estimated at 4.5 full time equivalent roles per shop. Irish Bookmakers Association, 2026.